Page 13 of One Day at a Time

Orla wasn’t quite as shocked. ‘I watched that one too. Apparently, that happens more than you’d think. People trace relatives and it turns out they live in the same street. Or go to the same gym. Or the same church. But unless one of you lot is my secret sister, which would be great, then I’m fine not knowing. My mum is who I was meant to be with. She said she knew right there and then that I was meant for her. Her parents had not long passedaway, and she was an only child, so she was always convinced that they somehow sent me for her. She said it was fate.’

‘Oh no, we’ve set her off on the fates again,’ Keli teased.

‘And I remain unapologetic about that,’ Orla protested, laughing. ‘If I hadn’t met you lot in the café that day, we wouldn’t be here. If I hadn’t been called in to do an extra shift and met Kyle on the one weekend he was in Cork, then I wouldn’t have come to Glasgow. And if my mum hadn’t been working for that charity twenty-eight years ago… I’m telling you, my life has been full of wild coincidences that aren’t actually coincidences at all. It’s the fates.’

The story of her mum finding her had shaped that belief, and it had been one of her favourite stories as a child. Even though Orla knew every detail, she’d still ask her mum to tell it again and again. Sometimes she wondered if that was why she couldn’t wait to have her own child. She wanted that connection. That feeling of absolutely belonging to someone. She’d had it with her mum, and from the moment that she’d met Kyle too, but she craved more. If Kyle was up for it, she planned to raise the population significantly. Although, it would help if she could get started with the first one.

The thought made her hand automatically go to her stomach. Her period was due today and she had a test ready and waiting. She’d hoped she would have time to do it this morning, but Kyle was working on a job in Dundee and had stayed overnight there last night. His construction team often did that to save the two-hour drive back and forward.

‘Well, I’m just glad that the fates sent you to us too,’ Yvie said, Victoria sponge suspended in mid-air, just waiting for her to take the next bite. ‘Because you’re the best addition to our team since Emmy wandered onto the ward and we forced her to stay.’

Emmy nodded, her expression deadpan. ‘She’s right. It waslike a hostage situation. Two years now and I still haven’t managed to escape.’

Their laughter probably made Aidan in the garden room next door wince. Orla just hoped he wasn’t on some vital Zoom call that might be interrupted by the sound of four women having an afternoon soirée on the first sunny day of the year.

‘Right, well, talking of my mother,’ Keli began, ‘I’d better get going. We’re having the full squad for my birthday dinner tonight and she’ll send out a search party if I’m not there on time.’

It was the cue for the rest of them to reluctantly leave too, and after shifting all the plates, bottles and glasses inside, there was a flurry of hugs and goodbyes.

The high from an afternoon of chat and laughter was still there a couple of hours later, when Orla was sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, and heard the sound of Kyle’s van coming into the driveway. Her smile was automatic because this was the first night he’d been home before six o’clock in weeks. He was obviously making an effort because he remembered that they had the test to do tonight.

‘Hey, babe,’ he said, coming in behind her and wrapping his arms around her as he kissed her on the top of the head.

She swivelled around on her stool so that she could kiss him properly, her gaze taking in his work cargos and the black polo shirt with his family’s company logo. Kyle and his brother had worked for the family business since they left school, but they were now fully fledged partners and that came with the kind of responsibility and weight that had him grafting sixty-hour weeks. Orla was incredibly proud of the work he was doing to secure a sound financial footing for their future family. Although a bit more time with him wouldn’t go amiss. Especially at this time of the month.

‘Let me go shower, and I’ll be right back down,’ he told her,his hands pushing his brown wavy hair back off his way too handsome face.

The whole concept of love at first sight was one that used to make her roll her eyes, until the night Kyle Ferguson had walked into A&E in a Cork hospital four years ago, half carrying, half dragging a mate who’d overindulged on his stag weekend in the city and somehow managed to miss a kerb and fracture his ankle. As she’d mentioned to the girls earlier, she wasn’t even supposed to be there that night, but they’d been short staffed and she’d gone in to help, and they’d been the last people she’d seen before she’d gone off duty. It was the first time she’d ever ended a shift sharing a coffee with a patient’s pal, while a remorseful and rapidly sobering soon-to-be groom was in the fracture clinic, getting plastered while trying to call his future bride to explain why he’d be hobbling up the aisle. Fate. As always.

That night had been the start of a two-year long-distance relationship, then a wedding, then a move to Glasgow for her. It made so much more sense to make their home here, because her mum was perpetually on the road, whereas Kyle’s company was here, and his family were the kind of people who would drop everything to help them, whether it was renovating the house that they lived in now, or being their chief and willing babysitters in the future.

Speaking of which… ‘I’ll come upstairs with you. We can do the test when you get out of the shower.’

A rush of something that sat between excitement and terror surged all the way to every nerve ending as she said that. Kyle’s emotions must have landed more on the fear side, because she saw the flinch of something negative cross his face, then settle into two tiny lines between his brows as he frowned.

‘Orla, do we need to do the test today? Isn’t it too early?’

She slipped off the chair and took his hand, completelyunderstanding his apprehension. The disappointment every month was so sore on the heart, and it got harder to bounce back every time. But maybe they wouldn’t have to. Maybe this would be the month. And if not, well, they could revisit the doctor and start looking into the reasons that it wasn’t happening, and then explore treatments. Whatever was ahead for them, Orla was prepared to do it, because there was nothing she wanted more than the family that she’d been planning in her head since she was a child.

‘No, it’s not too early. My period is due today, so we’re good.’ She mentally ran a check down her body, searching for even the tiniest inkling that she could be pregnant, but there was nothing. Not really a surprise. If she was expecting, it would be so incredibly early. It was close to miraculous that the pregnancy test could pick it up so quickly, but it promised results on the first day that her period was due, so here they were.

‘Okay, if you’re sure. Let me shower first, though. I’ve literally got sawdust coming out of my pores.’

‘I could come wash it off for you.’ Wow, the sugar high from all the cake was clearly still running through her bloodstream. Showering together used to be their favourite way to wake themselves up in the morning, and it inevitably led to more than just showering. When had that stopped? A few months ago, when he took on more responsibility at work and started going in earlier? Or when their sex lives had become so concentrated around ovulation that they let it slip the rest of the month? Ouch, that had a ring of truth about it. Going forward, they really had to make an effort to be spontaneous again.

‘I’ll take a raincheck on that,’ he said, kissing her again. ‘But let’s go get this done.’

The knockback didn’t sting too much, because she knew the test would be on his mind too. That was probably why those twolines between his eyebrows were still there as he took her hand and led her upstairs.

Ten minutes later, she was lying on the bed, when he came out of their steamy en suite with just a towel round his waist. In any other situation, on any other day, that spontaneity thing would be kicking in right about now. Maybe it was the six-pack abs. Or the tan from his golf trip to Marbella last week. Whatever it was, if she was the type of person who possessed a smug gene, it would be swelling right now.

‘In case I forget to tell you, I love you for your mind, but I keep you for your body.’

For the first time since he came home, his laugh banished the frown lines and he leant down and kissed her, properly this time, the way that they used to do when they had all the time in the world and none of the stresses.

‘In case I forget to tell you, I love you.’ His words replaced the support of her friends as her source of warmth and she realised that she’d missed this closeness.

Lesson learned. Time to focus on each other again, no matter what the test said.