Page 6 of The Girlfriend’s Secret

‘I’m just saying I hope he’s really ready to be back here. To get a job. To save up money and get a proper place to live. I hope he doesn’t regret it because it won’t be easy for him being cooped up with Mum and Dad again 24/7 after being away for so long.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ I say, though I have no concrete evidence to base that opinion on. Rather, it’s just hope that my son will love being back home and not quickly resent that he has swapped sunsets in Sydney for boxsets on the sofa with his parents.

‘Maybe it will be,’ Frederik says as he puts on a pair of old shorts before getting beneath the duvet. ‘Maybe he is really ready to settle down and do the things we were doing at his age. Maybe Haven is the mother of our future grandkids.’

That sudden sentence causes me to forget that I was making an effort to shield my body from my husband, and I turn around to look at him as he lies in our bed.

‘That’s rushing things, don’t you think?’ I say. ‘They’ve only been together a few months.’

‘Yes, but they seem very happy,’ Frederik replies, his eyes locked on mine rather than flitting down my semi-naked body, and I’m not sure if I should be relieved at that or dismayed.

‘I know they do. I’m just saying that it’s very early days and sitting on a beach all day in Australia is very different to living in the real world back here, so let’s see how they manage with a little more routine in their lives,’ I reply before covering up the parts of my skin that were on show with an oversized T-shirt that I have taken to sleeping in over the past few years.

Lingerie is long gone from this house.

‘Of course,’ Frederik says as he picks up the crime thriller from his bedside table and thumbs through the pages to find where he is up to in the story. One of my husband’s many follies is that he doesn’t use bookmarks, a fact I find bizarre, but we’re all different in some way, aren’t we?

‘What do you think of her?’ I ask him before he can start reading, assuming he has found the correct page given his disregard for precise tracking.

‘Huh?’ Frederik says, still flicking through the pages and possibly having some difficulty finding the right place in the book to resume reading, not that he would ever admit to it this far into our marriage.

‘What do you think about Haven?’ I ask, keen to get his honest assessment of his son’s girlfriend in the sanctuary of our bedroom where no one else has to hear our thoughts. Sure, Joel and Haven might be sleeping in his old bedroom down the hallway right now, but they can’t hear any discussion in here. Not unless they put their ears to the door and listen in, but why would they do that?

Just to make sure, before Frederik can answer me, I open our bedroom door to check that no one is out there. It’s all clear.

‘She’s very friendly,’ Frederik says as I quickly close the door again. ‘Confident too. I haven’t sensed any awkwardness from her since she has been here.’

‘Neither have I,’ I say. ‘But isn’t that weird? I mean, shouldn’t there be at least some awkwardness on her part?’

‘Would you prefer there to be?’ Frederik asks with a laugh, looking up from the book that he may or may not have found the right page to read from.

‘No, I’m just saying, it is a little strange how relaxed she has seemed since she got here. Like at the wake today, I noticed she was talking to lots of different people. It was as if she was at a cocktail party with friends, not surrounded by strangers at a very depressing event following the death of someone she had never met.’

‘You’d rather she sat in a corner and didn’t talk to anybody?’ my husband says with his annoying tendency for sarcasm.

I answer that by rolling my eyes before I get into bed alongside him.

‘I think her confidence can only be a good thing, especially for Joel,’ Frederik says. ‘We both know he could use a little confidence boost himself every now and again, so maybe she can help with that.’

‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘Or maybe she is a little overconfident.’

‘How so?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just getting a weird vibe from her.’

‘A vibe. You do realise you’re fifty years old. I’m not sure you can get away with words like vibe anymore.’

‘Oh shut up,’ I say, slapping my husband’s shoulders, playfully, but just hard enough so he knows not to make comments about my advancing age again anytime soon. It’s not as if he isn’t exactly the same age as me either, although to be fair, I don’t ever remember him uttering the ‘vibe’ word before. I don’t think I’ve said it before either, but it’s the best way I could think of to describe how I feel around Haven. It is a vibe and it is an increasingly uncomfortable one. I wish it wasn’t so because I want my son to be happy. Any mother would.

So why do I feel unhappy?

It could just be about Mum. As Frederik puts down his book, he seems to think so too.

‘It’s been a hard time, and you got a hell of a shock when you found your mother,’ my husband says, taking hold of my hand. ‘You need to just focus on taking time for yourself and not worrying about other people. I know that seems impossible for you because you’re so selfless, but you need to try. I’m here to support you. Okay?’

I relax as Frederik’s words of encouragement wash over me, a needed reminder that I have been operating under a heightened state of stress recently and, therefore, anything I think or feel comes with a big asterisk because this is not my normal state. I guess that extends to how I feel about my son’s new girlfriend too, and maybe now they are living with us, I will realise that Haven is nothing but good news and could be a very welcome addition to our family.

As Frederik returns to his book, I think about rolling over and getting some sleep. Lord knows I will be glad when this day is over. You only bury your mother once in your lifetime, but once is more than enough. But before I can try and sleep, I realise I’ve forgotten to bring a glass of water up and, knowing how thirsty I often feel if I wake in the night, I decide that I’d better go and get one, just in case.