Page 4 of The Girlfriend’s Secret

‘Like what?’ Haven asks, intrigued to learn more, though I wish she’d just shut up and be quiet at this point because her youthful exuberance feels very out of place on a day like this.

‘Remember the time she told us she had done a bungee jump in Canada,’ Scott says from the sofa where he reclines horizontally, and I can’t help but smile at my eldest son for reminding us of that memory.

‘Yeah, she had kept that one quiet,’ I say. ‘I think we were all shocked when she got home and showed us the video.’

‘Your granny did a bungee jump?’ Haven asks Joel, looking stunned. ‘How old was she at the time?’

‘In her sixties,’ my youngest replies, much to Haven’s astonishment.

‘Wow, she sounds like so much fun. I wish I had met her! I wanted to do a bungee jump in Australia, but I chickened out at the last minute. Remember?’

‘I do,’ Joel says. ‘I guess my grandma was braver than you.’

Haven jabs Joel in the ribs playfully before snuggling into his shoulder, and while I would usually be happy to see my son so loved up with someone, I can’t shake the feeling that something is off with Haven. I’ve felt it ever since I first met her, which was yesterday, just after her and my son had got off their flight.

‘There he is,’ Frederik had said when he’d spotted our youngest son with his backpack on his shoulders, appearing beneath the Arrivals sign looking far more tanned than he had twelve months earlier.

‘And there she is,’ I had added as I saw the woman he was walking beside, a backpack on her shoulders too and an even deeper tan than the one my son was sporting.

She was very attractive, a fact I had picked up from the photos of her my son had shared online, but she looked even more stunning in real life. I hadn’t looked half as good as her when I was in my mid-twenties, but then again, I hadn’t been free to keep fit, travel the world and follow every one of my whims. I was already on baby number two by then.

‘The traveller returns!’ Frederik cried as our son approached before I opened my arms wide to welcome my son back to his homeland.

‘Hey, guys,’ Joel said before I enveloped him in a huge hug, the hug I had been impatiently waiting to give him for the past year.

‘Oh, I’ve missed you,’ I whispered to him, before noticing he felt a little skinnier than when he had left and making a mental note to feed him up for as long as he was back here. He hadn’t yet said how long he planned to be home, and we hadn’t pressed him on the subject. He was only back because of his grandma’s funeral, so I felt it best to get through that before discussing what his plans were for the future.

‘Come here, son,’ Frederik said before giving his boy a big hug too.

‘Hi, I’m Haven,’ the young woman standing beside our tightly squeezed son said then, and I made sure to open my arms wide to give her a big welcome too. This was my first impression, and I wanted it to be a good one. There’s nothing worse than a girlfriend not liking their partner’s mother, and I definitely didn’t want that, so I was making an extra effort. I just want my son to be happy, and I hope he always will be. But wanting your child to be happy 24/7 is a futile wish because it’s impossible. You can protect them from everything, except themselves.

‘It’s so lovely to meet you,’ I said as we embraced, slightly tentatively, but that was only natural.

‘You too,’ Haven said. ‘And I’m so sorry to hear about your mum. She sounded like a wonderful woman.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied, touched at the sentiment, and as Frederik greeted Haven, I felt like things were off to a good start, or at least as good as they could be given the circumstances.

Things seemed okay as we drove back from the airport too, Frederik and I in the front of the car while Joel and Haven sat in the back and regaled us with a few stories from their long trip back from Australia. Hearing their two young voices, each of them at a stage in life where they still had so much ahead of them, contrasted greatly with how I felt having just lost Mum and feeling like a huge part of my life was already over. But I was happy that Joel seemed less upset than I feared he might be, although I always knew my youngest son tended to hide his true feelings behind laughter and jokes. Scott is the one who lets everyone know how he feels at all times, be it good or bad, whereas Joel is more introverted and more likely to hide parts of himself, especially vulnerable parts like sadness, behind smiles and sarcasm. But it was good to have my son home, if only for a short while, and I knew all of us being back together would help us heal quicker from the hole my mother had left in our family.

It’s strange, but as I sit here now, after the funeral and the wake, I feel totally different about things. Sure, it’s still nice to have my two children here, but it’s not the same. Not with Haven here too. Not with how I have felt the longer I have been around her. Not with how I can’t shake the indiscernible feeling that there is something very off about her.

As I watch her pick up her phone and use Face ID to unlock it before her fingers start scrolling across the screen, my family offers a welcome distraction from my paranoia.

‘So, what’s your plans now, bro?’ Scott asks his sibling as Frederik hands me a cup of tea and takes a seat beside me. ‘Back to Australia or heading somewhere else to avoid getting a proper job like the rest of us?’

Joel rolls his eyes at his brother’s sarcastic jibe before firing back one of his own.

‘Sorry for not living the dream in a mechanic’s garage like you do all day,’ he says with a cheeky smirk.

‘I own that mechanic’s garage, so I am living my dream, actually,’ Scott snaps back, unable to hide his annoyance at his little brother’s dismissal of his life choices.

‘Yeah, oil-soaked rags and broken-down cars sound so much better than sunbathing on Bondi and watching the sun set behind the Opera House,’ Joel says before Scott picks up a sofa cushion and launches it at his brother’s head, laughing.

‘Boy, we haven’t missed this,’ Frederik says with a chuckle, even though I know he has missed it just as much as me. It’s clear that Scott and Joel have missed it too, despite what they might say to each other, and for another brief moment, it’s lovely to have us all back under one roof. And then I get a reminder that there is another person with us.

‘We’re actually thinking of staying in England,’ Haven says, and such is my shock at what I’ve just heard, I almost spill my tea.

‘Really?’ I ask, looking from her to Joel.