Page 51 of One Day at a Time

‘Oh that’s a tough one, Maddie. And sorry if I’m overstepping, but I’m guessing this is what’s happened to you?’

‘I knew it was too specific to be hypothetical, but I was just trying to give you all the information. Please don’t say anything though. I haven’t even told Orla the truth. I’ve just stuck to the story that I’m pregnant by an ex-boyfriend.’

Sheena asked her a load more questions and they talked through a few different ways it could play out, but there was only one obvious conclusion. ‘You’re going to have to tell him eventually, Maddie.’

That was received with a groan. ‘I know. I’m thinkingChristmas Day, because he’s off work that day and we’re planning a call in the afternoon. Hey, happy Christmas, I don’t have your pressie yet, but it’s on the way. How do you feel about babies?’

At least she could still laugh about it.

‘Argh, you must think I’m so stupid and messed up.’

Sheena swirled her coffee around in her cup. ‘I don’t think you’re messed up at all. Actually, you are a bit messed up,’ she back-pedalled, laughing, ‘but so are we all.’

‘I refuse to believe it,’ Maddie argued playfully. ‘You and Gregor are like the picture-perfect couple. There’s no part of you that’s messed up. You’re just trying to play me for sympathy.’

Sheena enjoyed the teasing and welcomed the banter, but she also felt an irresistible urge to make Maddie see that nothing was picture perfect. Or maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe she was just sick of pretending. Fed up keeping the secret that she’d harboured from everyone but her closest friends for thirty years. Perhaps she was just desperate to get some kind of release from the thoughts that had been revolving in her head day and night for months. Yes, all of those things were true. So maybe that’s why she heard herself saying, ‘The last thing I deserve is sympathy. You see, I got pregnant on the last night I slept with Gregor before I left him. Something I’d wanted to do for years, because I’m no longer in love with him.’

She watched as Maddie’s eyes widened, her surprise blocking any kind of response, which left the space for Sheena to go on.

‘In fact, I’m not sure that I was ever in love with him, because I was too young to know for sure. We met when we were fourteen. And then, when we were sixteen, I got pregnant.’

Maddie still wasn’t speaking and now Sheena knew that it was because she also recognised when someone needed to get something off their chest.

‘We gave the baby up for adoption. Wow. That’s the first timeI’ve said that aloud in decades. I’ve thought about the baby every day, cried on her birthday, at Christmas, sometimes on a day that has absolutely no significance, and every day I’ve wondered where she is. Looking back now, I think that destroyed something in me. Made me feel that no one else could love me but Gregor. So we stayed together, bonded by guilt that felt like love, and we lived our lives to the fullest, took every opportunity to block out regret over what we’d done by convincing ourselves that our marriage and lovely lives were the one good thing to come from something so awful. It took me a long time to even consider having more children, and then when we tried, it didn’t happen. I wasn’t surprised. I put it down to the universe doling out justice for what we’d done. It was only this year that I realised that maybe I’d paid my penance. Maybe I’d tortured myself enough by longing for that baby every day for all those years and perhaps, just maybe, I could try to forgive myself. So that’s when I decided to leave my marriage and now… Well, this.’

It was only when she finished speaking that she realised that this woman who was practically a stranger before tonight now had her fingers entangled with hers.

‘Sheena, I’m so sorry.’

‘Thank you. I haven’t told that story to anyone in almost thirty years, so I’m telling you now as my official hairdresser therapist and asking you to keep it between us.’

‘I swear I won’t tell a soul,’ Maddie promised, and Sheena believed her. She expected the regret of sharing something so personal would kick in at some point, but there was no sign of it as Maddie went on, ‘I’m sorry for all the pain this has caused you and that you’re going through this now. You said you’d left Gregor, are you still apart or did this bring you back together?’

Sheena’s hand rested on her belly. This pregnancy was so different from the last one. She was in control, she could makeher own decisions, she was a secure adult with resources. But there were some similarities too. The questions. The fears. The uncertainty over what the future would look like.

‘I don’t know,’ Sheena admitted. ‘He wants me to move back in with him for a month, to see if we can make it work, but I’m scared that if I do, I’ll be with a man that I don’t love while having a baby that I desperately want. I’m absolutely terrified of making another decision I’ll regret for a lifetime, but there’s a part of me that knows I have to try. I do, don’t I? I need to try.’

Maddie squeezed her hands, then gave her an answer that definitely didn’t come from any recognised therapy books.

‘Well, given the mess of my own situation, I’m definitely not equipped to give advice, but I’ll always listen. Urgh, what are we like? Welcome to the Messed-Up Mums Club, Sheena. I think I’m going to make you president.’

As Maddie said that, Sheena knew that she’d made her decision. She had to at least attempt to undo the mess. It was time to go home.

26

MADDIE

‘Val, pass me a mince pie. Dear lord, I’m too old for this lark, I really am,’ Jessie wailed, standing up straight and taking a brief break from the intense concentration required to shape Val’s platinum blonde bob while flashing Christmas trees dangled from Val’s ears. ‘Those earrings are blinding me and my back is killing me. And if I hear “Last Christmas” one more time, I won’t be responsible for my actions. I haven’t recovered from the loss of that god of a man and hearing his voice every year just tugs at my heartstrings. Despite the obvious obstacles, I still think he’d have fallen hopelessly in love with me if he’d met me when he gigged in Glasgow with Wham in 1988. My puffball skirt would have won him over.’

At the chair next to the one at which Jessie was cutting Val’s hair while eating medicinal mince pies, Maddie was busy with one of her regular clients. She continued winding rollers into Mrs Dawson’s silky hair, that was, at her request, a striking shade of purple that had never been witnessed in nature. Not that Mrs Dawson cared. She was in her nineties, and frequently reminded them all that she was hard of hearing, so she couldn’t hearanyone mocking her hair anyway. Then she’d give a beaming smile, and Maddie would think she wanted to be just like that when she grew up.

In the meantime, though, she could empathise completely with Jessie’s aching back. It was two weeks before her due date, and the pre-Christmas rush had been brutal, despite Jessie taking over some of her appointments and sending her home early on an almost daily basis. Oh, and the gift she truly wanted in the salon secret Santa was a big bucket of fricking assertiveness, because the only thing longer than a five-year-old’s Christmas wish list was Maddie’s compendium of items that she still hadn’t crossed off her to-do list. Number one – tell Dylan about the baby. Number two – buy a crib for the baby. And a bath. And a pram. And everything else that the wee soul would need. Number three – decide where they were going to live. Even though Val had said she was welcome to stay as long as she wanted, Maddie still felt it was unfair to impose a baby on Val’s life indefinitely. Number four – choose an inscription for her mum’s gravestone. Every time she tried to do this, she fell apart because it reminded her that this was going to be her first Christmas without a mum. Number five…

She stopped there, feeling her heart start to race as the problems mounted up. She brought herself back to the present and the motto that had kept her going for the last few months. And yes, she always heard that blooming song Val and Jessie sang with it that night in Val’s kitchen. One day at a time. That’s all she could do. Take her life one day at a time. And today, Christmas Eve, she had Mrs Dawson, then one more cut and blow dry booked in, and then she’d be done for three o’clock.

‘It’s our last day, Jessie. Just four more hours and then we can all go home, put our feet up, watch trash telly and eat sausage rolls until Boxing Day.’

‘Apart from our annual mimosas at our house tomorrow morning,’ Val piped up, making Maddie smile.