Page 57 of One Day at a Time

‘Did you even think about where I was or what I was doing, while you were running through a fricking storm out there?’

He flinched, as if he’d been slapped.

‘I’m now in the last week or so of my pregnancy, Gregor. I’m supposed to be bloody nesting. Did it even occur to you that I might want you to nest with me? Oh no. I bet it didn’t. You could have been here with me, cuddled up on the couch… Okay, you moan about my restlessness when we’re both on the couch, but you could have sat on the chair and held my hand. We could have talked. You might even have shocked these extra-large pants right off my arse by kissing me, but oh no, you were at the fricking gym and then pounding the streets.’

Sheena was deeply aware that she was ranting and that this was supposed to be an alien mode of communication for her. She was a relationship counsellor. She taught effective mediation. Strategy. Calm responsiveness. Yet she appeared to have beenpossessed by a hormonal rage that she was struggling to switch off.

And it didn’t help that Gregor was staring at her as if she’d lost her mind.

‘Sheena, I don’t think you should be upsetting yourself…’

‘I’M NOT UPSETTING MYSELF! THAT’S THE POINT!YOU’REUPSETTING ME!’

‘Calm down…’

As soon as he said it, she could see that he realised his mistake. Telling her to calm down would be a bad move under normal circumstances, but tonight?

‘AND DON’T TELL ME TO BLOODY CALM DOWN!’

He turned and walked out of the room. She’d have followed him, but the thought of getting herself up was too much. Besides, he came back two minutes later sipping a bottle of water.

Water. She’d have respected him far more if he was dealing with this emotional turmoil by swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

The interruption had, however, given her enough breathing space to switch from shouting to a low, but very definitive tone.

‘Gregor, I’m sorry. I’ve tried. This isn’t working. I’m not happy and I don’t think you are either.’

She was prepared to rehash everything. To explain all the things that she’d shared with Maddie at their dinner. That she could see now that they’d married for the wrong reasons. That having their child adopted had bonded them in an unhealthy way, while eroding her self-esteem to the point that she was just grateful that someone loved her. That she hadn’t been happy or fulfilled for as long as she could remember. But none of that was necessary, because he put his hands up and said, ‘I think you’re right.’

Wind. Out. Of. Sails.

‘You do?’ There was relief, gratitude, and maybe even a touch of affection in her voice.

He took another sip of his water. ‘You were right in the point you made about me realising I was happy when we were apart. I truly was. But then when you were pregnant…’ He stopped and she could see that he was struggling to find the words. ‘I left a child before. Our child. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that again without at least trying to keep us together.’

‘Oh Gregor…’ Tears began to stream down her face at the raw heartache of it all. She hadn’t even considered that he’d felt that way. That he’d done this for the same reasons she’d agreed to come back. She’d thought he wanted to try again because he loved her. And maybe he did in his own way, but he actually wanted to try again because he loved their child. Their children. Both of them. And that meant so much more than she could ever explain to him, especially as she realised that he’d just spilled his water all over her legs.

‘Gregor, your w—’ She stopped, as she saw that he was still sitting on his chair, holding a bottle that was almost full. Then her eyes went to the blanket that was still covering her outstretched legs next to him. No damp patch there. And yet, she could feel…

‘Gregor, we will find a way to work this out. We’re going to be fine. All of us. But I think my waters just broke, so do you think we can start this new open and honest version of us by taking a trip to the hospital?’

29

MADDIE

Maddie put her phone back down on the bed, after checking it for the twentieth time in the last hour, hoping that there would be a text from someone, anyone, to fill the monotony of the endless hours she’d spent on the maternity ward this week. She was in a room by herself, which was good in the respect that she could watch TV, sleep when she wanted, chat to people on the phone and leave the light on all night to read Valerie Keogh’s latest thriller. It also meant that when Jessie, Val or Alyssa, or any combination of that trio, descended with food, gifts and constant chat, she could blether to them until their hearts were content. But at the end of every night, they got to go home, and that’s when the downside of her solo accommodation kicked in. There was way too much time to think. Way too much time to worry about her baby. And, in some moments, way too much time to be sad.

When they’d rushed here on Christmas Eve, she’d been beyond grateful to see that Sharon, her midwife, was here. She’d been swiftly hooked up to all kinds of monitors and kept in overnight until the doctors did the rounds the next morning.

That’s when she’d found out that she’d had things called Braxton Hicks contractions – pains that mimic the beginning of labour just to scare the crap out of you. In this case, though, it was a good thing, because when they’d checked her over, they’d also discovered that her blood pressure was too high, and the baby’s heart rate was a little fast too.

‘It’s a relatively common occurrence called gestational hypertension,’ Dr Rose, the consultant on the ward, had told her. ‘It’s not something to get overly worried about, but we’d like to keep you in, just so that we can keep a close eye on you and make sure it doesn’t develop into pre-eclampsia.’ She’d then explained both conditions in much more detail before finishing with, ‘We’d like to confine you to bed as much as possible. Keep your feet elevated and try to avoid any kind of stress or exertion.’

At first, there had been relief, because at least she was in the right place to keep her baby safe. She still felt that way. If she was given the choice to leave tonight, she’d refuse, because the comfort of knowing that Sharon or one of the other midwives would be right there at the press of a button made up for any amount of loneliness. However, she had to admit that lying here hour after hour, thinking about the last year, about losing her mum, about the future, and – oh, her toes curled to admit this even to herself – imagining Dylan, cuddled up with his ex-wife on the back of his fricking pick-up truck, snogging her under the brim of that cowboy hat, gave her the kind of anxiety that the doctor had warned her to avoid.

Dylan and Rachel. Why hadn’t he told her that he was getting back with his ex-wife? Or that he’d invited her over for Christmas?

She put her hands on her belly. ‘Sorry if my heart raced there, little one. Just thinking about your dad. I’ve made a bit of a mess of things.’