A Home Like Ours by Fiona Lowe (feel good books .txt) 📕

winning this round in what was obviously a power battle between the two women.

Her phone buzzed and Zac’s name lit up on the screen. Suddenly her decision was easy. After all, what was one more secret in the growing number between her and Jon.

‘Fine, but don’t mention the maize crop to Jon.’

Helen smiled and shot out her hand. ‘Deal.’

Noise barrelled through Tingledale—children shrieking, music blaring and numerous conversations tumbling over each other—the usual chaos that occurred when three families with young children got together. Ninety minutes into the evening, Tara was avoiding Rhianna as much as possible yet knowing exactly where she was in the house and who she was with. Added to that stress, she was biting her tongue and sitting on her hands so she didn’t pluck Kelly’s damn phone from her fingers and throw it in the pool.

And then there was Jon. With a longneck in hand, eyes overly bright and cheeks flushed, he was leaning against the wall chatting to Chris. One leg jiggled and his left thumb constantly rolled over the tips of his fingers as if he was preparing to run away. Like so many things with Jon lately, it made little sense.

Earlier in the evening, just before their guests arrived, he’d thanked her for organising the gang gathering in the exact same way he’d thanked her for coming to the staff meeting—polite and infuriatingly paternal. In fact the kiss he’d dropped onto her cheek was reminiscent of Ian’s greetings and farewells. It seemed that as long as she was a good little wife making no demands on him—sexual or otherwise—he was happy. It had taken most of her self-restraint not to scream and her thoughts had immediately strayed to Zac. It was taking all of her restraint not to convert her fantasies and her outrageous flirting into something tangible and real. With the way things were between her and Jon, was her restraint even worth the effort?

‘Is everything okay?’ Shannon asked.

‘Sorry?’

Shannon’s gaze flicked between Tara and Jon. ‘Are things between you and Jon okay?’

Tears of gratitude prickled her eyes at her friend’s perspicacity and her words rushed out on a roll of relief. ‘Things are—’

The sudden tinkling sound of a spoon on glass silenced the room almost as fast as gunshot. Shannon muttered something about lousy timing and waddled over to stand next to her husband.

Chris set down the glass and spoon and slid his arm around Shannon’s thick waist, pulling her in close. ‘Seeing as I have your attention—’

‘Chris and his b-b-loody speeches,’ Jon slurred.

The now-permanent knot in Tara’s gut tightened. Jesus, Jon! Drunk again? Was her husband an alcoholic? More horrifying was the realisation she lacked the energy to care.

‘You’re up against Tara’s trifle so get on with it,’ Al called.

‘First I want to thank Tar and Jonno for their constant and generous hospitality,’ Chris said. ‘It’s fitting that they’ve inadvertently thrown us a farewell party.’

Farewell party? Tara glanced around the room, seeking confirmation of Chris’s words, but everyone’s faces were blank.

‘What are you talking about?’ she said.

Shannon held up Chris’s hand, her face a combination of pride and delight. ‘Chris has been offered a fellowship. Two years working and studying in New York. I’m being induced on Tuesday and the five of us leave in three weeks!’

‘I’m making a table and chairs for the Thadley family,’ Chris said. ‘They’re huge supporters of the arts in the city.’

‘The city?’ Jon pushed himself off the wall and, with a sloppy action, threw an arm over Chris’s shoulders. ‘L-listen to him. He s-sounds like a New Yorker w-wanker already.’

Tara battled shock at the unexpected news and her fury at Jon’s drunkenness. She finally found her voice. ‘Oh my God! That’s amazing! Congratulations. What an opportunity!’

She hugged Chris and Shannon. But not even her happiness for them could alter the reality that her best friend was leaving her alone with two women who judged her, and in a marriage with a barely beating pulse. Standing back and watching the others give their congratulations, loneliness tightened around Tara, caging her like a net. Her chest heaved and her legs twitched, fighting the sensation of being dragged fast towards a deep black hole.

She knew the only way to avoid it and survive was to call Zac and run.

CHAPTER

18

Helen wielded a highlighter on yet another article in The Standard that was against the housing project. Once again, the rag that declared itself the ‘voice of Boolanga’ was making tenuous links between Australian values and the town’s social problems.

An ache burned under her ribs. She was still reeling from the revealing conversation with Tara Hooper. In the same breath, the woman had declared she wasn’t racist yet threatened to withdraw sponsorship of the garden. What devastated Helen the most was that the Hoopers were young. What hope did Boolanga have when its future leaders’ views were so entrenched?

Where did this fear of anyone different come from? Why were young black men judged more harshly than their white counterparts? Two hundred years of white colonisation, Helen. Racism had arrived with the First Fleet.

She poured her outrage into another letter to the editor.

You write about this nebulous thing ‘Australian values’. Do we as a nation truly believe in values that exclude the homeless, the unemployed and people of colour? If we do, then those values you hold so dearly are the root cause of the social problems you say you don’t want in this town.

After The Standard had published her earlier letters, Helen had received a dozen emails from people she didn’t know telling her in no uncertain terms that Boolanga needed progress not socialism. The milder ones said if she loved communism so much she should go and live in China. Others were so brutally offensive she’d reflexively hit the delete key, needing the horrifying words gone.

This week, the emails had risen exponentially. Initially, she’d replied to the polite ones, offering up an alternative point of view in the hope of changing their minds. When