Page 18 of One Day at a Time

ORLA

‘Och, I don’t know, Mam, I think perhaps this is all just taking a minute for me to get used to. But he’s right. Maybe taking a pause on the pregnancy thing is right for us. It was almost like we kind of lost ourselves in it.’ Orla punctuated the sentence with a loud, prolonged sniff and wiped away the tears that were silently falling down her cheeks.

Was it really only a week since the conversation that had changed everything?

That day, sitting on the bed, she’d turned over the pregnancy test, and her heart had stopped as she’d searched for the result. There it was. Loud and clear in capital letters – NOT PREGNANT.

Beside her, Kyle had let out a long, slow sigh, then put his arm around her and pulled her into him. ‘I’m sorry, babe,’ he’d whispered, and Orla heard the catch in his voice. This was so hard for him too, because he’d wanted this just as much as she had. Maybe that was why it had stung so badly and why he’d responded in the way that he had.

After a few moments, nestled into his chest, inhaling thescent of his deodorant, Orla had fought to keep the devastation from her voice. ‘It’ll happen. I know it will. The doctor said we should come and see him at the two-year mark, and he would refer us to a fertility specialist, so we can do that now.’

There was a pause, and she’d thought he was mulling that over until he’d said softly, ‘Or maybe we can take a break from this for a while and just focus on having a bit of fun again.’

Orla had pulled back, sat up so that they were face to face. ‘I don’t understand. Don’t you want to keep trying? I thought that was what we both wanted.’

‘It is. But I just think…’

She’d seen that he was struggling to find the words, as he stopped, thought about it, then went on. ‘Babe, since the day we got married, we’ve been so focused on getting pregnant, and sometimes it feels like it’s more important to you than anything else. I just want to be us again. Take the pressure off. I’ve got enough of that at work without coming home and having it here too.’

Orla had felt a wave of guilt flood over her head and crash right into her heart. ‘I didn’t realise that it had become a problem for you. You should have said…’

It had been impossible to keep the edge of resentment that she’d felt out of her voice, but if he’d noticed, he hadn’t reacted to it. Instead, he’d gone on, ‘I want to have sex when we feel like it – not just on the days when we have to.’

Okay, so he had a point. Sex outside the ovulation zone of her cycle had definitely dwindled, and she could have argued that was down to the long hours he was working too, but she hadn’t. She’d still been way too devastated at the words on the stick to steer that conversation anywhere close to a full-blown argument. That had never been their style, anyway. They barely fought and always managed to talk things through before they escalated toany kind of conflict. So instead of arguing, she’d done the only thing that she’d felt would make them both feel better. At least for a while. She’d kissed him and then soothed the ache inside her by proving him wrong, by showing him that they could still have the kind of passion that had got a little lost over the previous few months.

Since that day, none of her sorrow had been processed, and she hadn’t wanted to talk to him about it. Instead, she’d just kept it all inside, until now, and it was all pouring out on the phone to her mum while she was sitting in the car park of Glasgow Central Hospital before her shift.

‘Och, love, I’m so sorry. I wish I was there to give you a hug,’ her mum sighed.

Despite her tears, that made Orla smile. ‘Pathetic as it is for a twenty-eight-year-old woman to say, I wish that too, Mam.’ As she said that, two things happened. She realised that the state of her was just going to give her mum something to worry about and that was the last thing she wanted, and she also caught her reflection in the rear-view mirror. ‘Jeez, I need to get a grip. I can’t be going into the ward with mascara down my face. I’m supposed to be a ray of sunshine and positivity for my patients.’ The jokey delivery broke the gloom and she heard her mum laugh. Okay, normal service resumed. ‘Sorry, Mam, I promise I’m fine. You just caught me at a bad moment. Honestly, I’m good. Anyway, it’s the first of June, the start of summer, so I’m going to pull it together and enjoy the next few months without stressing.’

‘I think that’s the right thing to do, sweetheart. And you never know…’

‘Stop. I can already tell what you’re going to say.’ This had been one of Kyle’s points too. ‘You’re going to say that if we stop trying and just relax, maybe nature will kick in and I’ll be preggers before the summer is out.’

The sentiment was appreciated, even though Orla knew that was a cliché and a highly unlikely scenario. Even more so because Kyle was working such long hours these days, he was too knackered to do much more than climb into bed at night and shove on another episode of whatever crime show was running on Netflix.

‘Anyway, Mam, I’d better go. Thanks for listening to me. You stay safe out there in…’

‘Just crossing the border into Kosovo. We’re in a three-truck convoy.’

Orla’s mascara tracks bent as she broke into a smile. ‘Of course you are. You know, Mam, some day I’m going to ask where you are and you’re going to say I’m just off to the cinema. Or nipping down to the bingo.’

The cackle at the other end of the line made her grin even wider. Her mum was due to return to Ireland next month for a two-week break, and Orla was hoping she’d fly straight over to Scotland to see her. Orla was counting the days. ‘If that ever happens, you’ve got the wrong number, sweetheart. Hang up and dial again.’

They said their goodbyes, and as she made her way up to the Elderly Ward, Orla tried to psych herself up to slap on a smile and act carefree and chipper for the next ten hours.

As she opened the staffroom door, she gave herself a mental pep talk. She could pull it off. She definitely could.

At least, until Yvie greeted her with, ‘Oh, doll, what’s happened? Are you okay?’

Pulling it off was going to have to wait, because apparently she was crying again.

Over at the table, Yvie jumped up and dashed towards her, put her arm around her shoulders and walked her back to a chair. ‘Sit down…’ Yvie reached for a roll of blue paper that was onthe worktop next to the kettle and tore a strip off. ‘Here you go.’

‘Thanks.’ Orla sniffed, mortified. Crying wasn’t her thing, especially not in public and definitely not at work. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me, honestly. I’m never like this.’

Yvie flicked the kettle on, then sat down next to her. ‘I know, lovely. Has something happened?’