Page 41 of The Girlfriend’s Secret

There was no response.

‘I hope you get some sleep too,’ I’d said to Frederik next as we stood by the open front door, both of us peering out into the dark night that I would soon be venturing out into.

‘We’ll figure this out,’ was all he had said to me before we hugged and I left, although crucially, neither one of us told the other that we loved them. Perhaps we should have done, or perhaps we were both afraid that we might not hear it back at that moment in time.

I was glad of the short drive over here, if only to try and clear my head, and now that I’m here, I am hungry. If it’s ridiculous to want to eat something in the middle of the night, it’s just as ridiculous that I’ve had to come here. Of course, I’m blaming Haven for this fact as I go into my mother’s kitchen and start opening the cupboards to see if there is anything edible I can have.

Anything fresh was thrown out in my first clean, but there are still a few tins in the cupboards, and I find some beans that will do the job of satiating my appetite until a more appropriate time to eat comes around in the morning.

As the beans cook, I wander around the downstairs rooms of my mother’s house, but everything looks the same as it did the last time I was here. That’s perhaps one of the most unsettling things about a person’s home after they have died. Everything just stays frozen in time, as the deceased left it, and unless anyone else comes to make a mess, nothing will change at all. At least I’m here to make a bit of a mess. Once the beans are cooked, I pour them onto a plate and sit down at the kitchen table to eat them.

Dining solo here makes me think of how many mealtimes my mother must have had just like this. Maybe I should have invited her around for meals more often and not been quite as preoccupied with my own busier dinner table. It doesn’t matter now. Death removes the option of choice.

I plan to eat my meagre meal and then go upstairs to bed, but before I can spoon the last few mouthfuls of beans into my mouth, my phone rings.

I am expecting it to be my husband checking that I got here okay, but it’s not. It’s my son, but not the one I want to hear from the most right now. Rather than Joel calling me at this late hour of the night, it’s Scott.

What is he doing awake?

And what does he want?

‘Hello?’ I say as I answer his call, and he seems as surprised to hear from me as I am from him.

‘Why are you not asleep?’ he wants to know.

‘I could ask you the same question,’ I reply plainly as I put the call on speakerphone so I can tidy up while I talk.

‘Got a lot on my mind,’ my son says as I carry my plate to the sink.

‘Like what?’

Scott doesn’t answer. Instead, he asks another question.

‘Is Joel okay?’

‘Why wouldn’t he be?’ I ask.

‘He just posted something online about difficult families.’

That doesn’t sound good. But it does sound like something my youngest would do after a family dispute. Can’t people just keep things behind closed doors like they did in the old days and not share all sorts of private matters with total strangers? I guess not.

‘It’s a long story,’ I say. ‘Come by the house tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about it.’

‘Is it about Haven?’ Scott asks, guessing correctly immediately.

My silence is my answer.

‘What has she done?’ Scott wants to know. ‘What has she said?’

‘Nothing worth repeating,’ I reply as I twirl my hair tightly around my finger and look at my reflection in the kitchen window.

‘Tell me,’ Scott says, and I can detect the desperation in his voice, even down the phone line.

‘She has made some pretty wild accusations,’ I say with a sigh. ‘Accusations that relate to your grandmother and how she died.’

‘I knew that girl was bad news. I could tell the first time I met her.’

‘And you haven’t been shy to tell her that, have you?’ I say to my son.