Page 46 of One Day at a Time

‘I’m the first to admit that I took you for granted and switched off from our marriage,’ he’d attempted a defence of his actions. ‘I think we needed to be without each other to appreciate what we had. The important thing is that I realise I made a mistake and I want you now. Come home, Sheena. Let’s just move on and be a family again.’

Sheena had been unsure where to go with that. Hadn’t they both made mistakes? They’d manage to forgive each other for the one that they had made almost thirty years ago and that was so much worse.

Surely, for the sake of their baby, she should try again? Okay, so he’d gone through a period in his life where their marriage and his feelings for her had gone stale, and yes, he’d refused to fix it. But didn’t the fact that he felt differently now mean that they’d come full circle?

Or did it? Gregor might now want her again, but the last few years of distance and rejection had closed down the feelings that she had for him.

Now, as she lowered herself into the warm bath, she thought back to the time in her life when she’d been in love with him.

The problem was, whether she went back for a week, a month, or forever, she still wasn’t sure whether she could ever feel that way again.

23

MADDIE

‘Maddie, come on in.’

Maddie got up from the uncomfortable plastic chair in the waiting room of the maternity unit and headed towards the midwife who’d just poked her head out of her treatment room.

‘Thank God. My left buttock has been numb for the last twenty minutes. Would it kill them to put some padded chairs out here?’ Val said all of this under her breath, in the few steps it took them to get to their destination.

‘Lovely to see you, Maddie. You too, Val.’ This was the fourth time now that Maddie had seen Sharon, her assigned midwife for the entirety of her pregnancy so far, and it always impressed her that Sharon could remember all the names and the details of her patients’ individual situations.

‘Thanks, Sharon. It’s good to see you too and…’

Now that she was up close and facing her, Maddie’s words fell off as her gaze landed on her midwife’s uniform. Or, rather, the extensive roundness in the front of it.

Val obviously had exactly the same realisation at that same time, but she had infinitely less tact, so she was the one thatblurted, ‘Sharon, is it smuggle a space hopper to work day or have you got a new arrival of your own coming?’

‘Val!’ Maddie chided her, mortified. ‘You can’t say stuff like that anymore.’

Thankfully, Sharon’s laughter made it clear that she didn’t mind the intrusive question in the least. ‘Much as I love the sound of smuggle a space hopper to work day and I’ll be lobbying to make that an official holiday, I’m actually just more than a little pregnant.’

‘Och that’s lovely. Are we allowed to ask how far along?’ Val was in full census-information gathering mode as usual. Her need to chat to every single person they met did mean that it took twice as long to get anything done – case in point, this meeting with the midwife. Not that Maddie wasn’t a little curious about Sharon’s pregnancy too.

‘I’m a couple of months behind you,’ Sharon was answering Val’s question. ‘And I intend to work right up until my final month, so I’ll still be here when you come in to have…’ She checked her screen. ‘Ah, that’s right. We didn’t check the gender of your baby. How are you feeling about that now? Have you changed your mind or are we sticking with that? No pressure, obviously. Everyone has their own feelings on finding out.’

‘Do you know what you’re having?’ Maddie asked, realising that not only had she not answered the question, but she’d jumped right on to Val’s nosy bus.

‘It’s a boy.’ Sharon’s hand rested on her stomach as she said that, and Maddie felt tears spring to her eyes at the sweetness of the moment. That had been happening a lot lately. According to the baby books, it was her hormones and perfectly normal, but it was playing havoc with her mascara.

Did she want to know? Yes. But it seemed like just another thing that should be a joint decision, and she was incapable ofmaking it on her own. Throughout her whole life, she’d been someone who took charge of her own destiny and got things done. She’d gone after the job she wanted straight out of school. She’d moved to Edinburgh and lived independently at an age that most of her friends were still figuring out gap years and what university they wanted to go to. Later, she hadn’t hesitated with the decision to come back and take care of her mum too. But now? Some kind of decision paralysis had set in and it was like she had tunnel vision – go to work, earn as much as possible to prepare for the baby, but don’t actually make any of the choices that were stacking up. She didn’t have a cot. Or a pram. Or a baby bath. Or clothes for the baby. Or names picked out. She was going to stay with Val for the first couple of months until she got back on her feet, but other than that, she had no long-term plan about where to go or what to do. And no, she still hadn’t told Dylan she was pregnant.

‘That bairn is going to be in school before you get round to breaking the news,’ Jessie had gently ribbed her last week. The most upsetting thing about that was that she might just be right.

‘Och a boy, that’s lovely,’ Val reacted to Sharon’s news.

‘Congratulations,’ Maddie added, forcing herself to sound enthusiastic. A boy. If she had a boy, would it look like Dylan? Or would it look like her own dad? Or maybe a mixture of the two.

‘Oh, pet, you’re off again,’ Val said gently, reaching over to the box of tissues on the desk next to her, popping one out and giving it to Maddie.

‘I’m sorry,’ Maddie said, with a loud sniff at the end.

‘I promise you don’t need to apologise. I go through a box of these tissues every week in this room. It’s a safe-cry space.’ Sharon said gently, and Maddie got the feeling that she’d said the same thing to many over-wrought mothers before her. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you’re feeling?’

Maddie dried her eyes. ‘I’m just a bit overwhelmed. The baby’s dad is still abroad, and I still haven’t told him, so I think I’m just having very mixed feelings about that.’

‘So you don’t have any contact then? That must be tough.’