Page 8 of One Day at a Time

‘You know you could just retire, Mam. Stay home. Do normal seventy-year-old things. Have a bit of fun and relax.’

‘Och, but where would the joy be in that, love?’ Orla heard the laughter and she could picture her mum’s smile and the twinkle in her eye as she said that. They both knew there would be no stopping Nula O’Flynn. She’d been at least a decade older than all of her friends’ mums – Nula was already in her early forties when she’d adopted Orla, and past her mid-forties when Orla had started school – but her age had never made a difference. She’d brought Orla up as a single mum while working full time as a nurse in a busy hospital in Cork, and she’d always had more drive and energy than anyone Orla had ever known. She still did. As long as Nula could hoist herself up into the wagon ofa truck, and be of use in a crisis, she’d be doing that job. ‘You know it’s being busy that keeps me young.’

It was a discussion they had so often that Orla knew there was no point in arguing. And, actually, much as she worried about her mum, she admired her even more. ‘Well, just be careful please, and remember I love you.’

‘I know, angel, and I love?—’

Orla sighed as the line crackled and then went dead. It happened all the time. Clearly, global telecommunications couldn’t keep up with Nula O’Flynn.

Orla let the greatest hits of Chris Stapleton accompany her the rest of the way home, singing the wrong words to a few of the verses, but she didn’t care because no one could hear her. Besides, she had other things on her mind, so she had the excuse of being distracted. Actually, there was only one other thing on her mind.

It had to be this month. Had to be. Because she wasn’t sure her heart could take another disappointment. Sometimes Orla looked back and marvelled at how oblivious she’d been about how difficult it might be to start a family. She’d thought that it would be simple, after she ditched the contraceptives on her wedding night, two years ago. Other girls dreamt of the perfect man or the big wedding, but for Orla, her future dreams always came with a huge family. Four kids. Maybe five. As an only child, going through life with a mum who was also an only child, they’d had no close family at all, so a huge brood was her happy ever after. She just hadn’t realised how difficult it would be to get there. She was only twenty-eight, so her doctor had said to be patient, to give it twenty-four months of trying to get pregnant before they started exploring fertility options. This was month twenty-four and she was hoping that the next two days of scheduled passion would finally work.

Today had to be about positivity. Today was the day. It had to be. She just hoped that the fates were listening.

Her neighbour, Aidan, was just pulling out of his driveway as she slowed down at her home, so she gave him a wave. She didn’t know him well, but he was thirty-something, good-looking, did something in finance, drove a flash sports car, and she regularly saw two or three different women going in and out of his house, so while she was always friendly, she had plenty of judgements that she kept to herself.

When she stopped in her driveway, she was so tired from the night shift, it took a moment to register what was wrong with the scene around her. It eventually dawned. No van.

Where was Kyle? The importance of today wasn’t a secret – he knew that was why she’d swapped her shift and she’d asked him to speak to his dad and say he’d be working from home today.

On the way into the house, she pulled out her phone and called him.

‘Hey, babe, where are you?’

Over the noise of the van in the background, she could hear that he sounded flustered. ‘Sorry, I just had to…’ There was a pause. The signal must be really bad wherever he was. ‘Go sort out a problem at the office.’

Her phone was balanced between her shoulder and her ear now, as one hand carried her bag, and the other slid her key in the lock. ‘At seven o’clock in the morning?’

‘Yeah, the office alarm was going off again.’

‘Babe, you really need to get that fixed. That’s what? The third time in the last few weeks that you’ve had to go out during the night?’

She dropped her bag on the console table at the front door and kicked off her shoes before heading to the kitchen.

‘Yeah, it seems to be an intermittent thing. Look, I’ll be home in ten minutes, but I need to go back to work again at lunchtime. There’s some stuff that can’t wait until tomorrow.’

Orla took a deep breath, trying desperately to stay calm and positive. It was disappointing, though. She’d rearranged everything to give them as much time together today as possible. Last month, when she was ovulating, they’d managed to have sex four times in twenty-four hours, and sure, it wasn’t exactly the stuff of romance, but if they were going to make this happen, then they had to try everything. Although, being in the same place and naked would definitely be a start. She wasn’t going to cause any tension, though. All that mattered was that he got home and they tried again to have the baby they both longed for.

They just had to get lucky once.

And it might just be the positivity talking, but she truly felt that this month could be their time.

MAY

4

SHEENA

‘Well, I think it’s bloody ridiculous,’ Jeremy Sinclair blustered, going a tad red in the face. As always, Sheena maintained a veneer of cool professionalism while, to her shame, internally enjoying his outrage.

‘Jeremy, I don’t think that’s helpful. If Cassandra feels that taking a holiday on her own will give her the space and clarity she needs to refocus on your marriage, then I think you should be supportive of that.’

Sheena sent up a silent prayer of hope that Cassandra’s plan to go on a spiritual retreat was actually a cover story because she was jaunting off to Morocco with a horny tennis pro with washboard abs. Either way, Sheena was just glad that Cassandra was making her own decisions and stepping out of Jeremy’s orbit, even for a short time.

‘But what about the children? Who’s going to look after them?’

Cassandra already had an answer for that. ‘Jeremy, they’re in school during the day and you’ll be there at night. I’m quite sure you can arrange your schedule so that you don’t have any worktrips for the five whole days that I’ll be gone. Can I remind you that you regularly jolly off on business for two or three weeks at a time, not to mention three golf trips in the last year alone. That’s if they were actually golf trips.’