‘Wait, where did this come from?’ I frowned as I shut the front door behind me, running my finger along a scratch on the front of my house.
‘What’s that?’ my husband asked innocently.
‘This scratch,’ I pointed, suspiciously. ‘It’s so deep.’
‘You can barely notice it from back here,’ he said cheerfully, opening the door of the car like the conversation was done.
‘Well, I’m not back there,’ I said. ‘I’m standing right here. Looking at a huge scratch in the front of my house!’
‘Honey,’ he said placatingly. ‘It’s okay. I’ve already spoken to one of the top architects Melbourne has to offer and he’s told me there’s probably no structural damage.’
‘What?!’ I blinked, trying to take in the many implications of that statement. ‘So you did know about it?’
‘I may have… seen it…’
‘And you didn’t tell me?!’
‘Well, I wanted to have an architect look at it first—’
‘Which architect?’
‘I told you, just a guy from one of the local commercial architecture firms, and he said—’
‘So,’ I cut him off, taking a dramatic step down the garden path towards him. ‘You managed to notice the scratch…’
Step.
‘Then you had enough time to get a top, local architect down here to have a look at it…’
Step.
My husband gulped.
‘Because you were worried there might have been structural damage?’
Step.
I was face-to-face with him now, glaring into his very soul.
‘Something like that,’ he grinned nervously.
‘Interesting,’ I nodded. ‘So you must have seen the scratch straight away, then?’
‘What’s that?’
‘You must have seen it pretty close to when it happened, to have the time to do all of this.’
‘I don’t know exactly what you’re implying—’
‘What did you do to our house, Gerald?’ I sighed, resting my face in my palm.
‘I hit it with the boat,’ he quickly admitted.
‘Gerald!’