Page 64 of One Day at a Time

As he opened the door, Sheena watched in absolute astonishmentas a face that she hadn’t seen for a long time came towards her.

‘Nula?’

Nula O’Flynn was her mother’s cousin. She came from the Irish side of her family, the one she’d just named her son after. And she was also the woman who had adopted their daughter when she was born twenty-nine years ago and taken her back to Ireland to bring her up as her own.

* * *

Orla

4.10 a.m.

Orla knew that she should be tired, but somehow she’d never felt more awake or alive in her life. Or more in love. Cara Nula Ferguson, born at 2.16a.m. on the first day of the year, was lying in her arms, suckling as she took her first feed. Her mum had kept her promise to contact Kyle, and he’d made it in in plenty of time to see their daughter take her first breath. Her mum had left now, gone off home with the promise that she’d be back first thing in the morning. ‘I’ve so much that I want to say to you, Orla,’ she’d whispered. ‘Things you need to know. But they’ll keep till tomorrow.’ Orla figured that statement meant her mum was preparing to share a whole load of baby advice. She’d been surprised at how emotional Nula had been. She’d nipped out to the loo right before Orla had gone into the last half-hour of labour, and when she’d come back, she’d burst into tears and been inconsolable for hours. Orla guessed that becoming a grandmother could have that effect.

It was similar to the effect that motherhood was having on her so far. Orla wasn’t sure that she’d stopped weeping with purejoy for more than a few moments since Cara had yelled through her entrance to the world and then been placed on her chest. Even Kyle had shed a tear, and Orla had expected to feel something about that, but she hadn’t.

Her daughter wasn’t the only one whose cord had been cut tonight. Everything she’d ever felt for him had died over the last few months, and his attitude earlier that day, when he’d come swaggering in the kitchen, unapologetic, had laid it to rest.

Perhaps that was why she didn’t even look up from her daughter’s face when he said, ‘Orla, I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.’

‘Mmmm,’ she replied, barely listening. Her hospital room was only lit by one lamp that stretched on a hinge from the wall behind her, and outside she could hear the muted sounds of people going back and forwards.

‘I know this is the worst time to talk about this, but I’ve got something I need to tell you.’

This time she registered something in his voice that made her raise her eyes to meet his. Regret? Sadness? She wasn’t sure.

‘I lied to you this afternoon when I said that I’d only had one affair. There was another one apart from Demi. Someone else.’

Orla nodded slowly, taking that in, realising that it wasn’t a surprise. It wouldn’t shock her now if he’d had ten affairs. She’d obviously never known him at all. ‘Who is she?’

‘A client. We built a conservatory on her house back at the start of the summer and we had a fling. Nothing at all really.’

‘Sounds like something to me,’ Orla replied, waiting for the rage, the sadness, the devastation to come. It didn’t. In a way, it was a relief. He was finally being honest. He was no longer trying to tell her it was all in her mind, trying to gaslight her into believing the opposite of what she knew was true. ‘Did she knowyou were married?’ Orla wasn’t sure why she asked that. She just felt that she wanted to know.

‘No. But I think someone on my crew told her that I was after the job was done, because I never heard from her again.’

Orla checked how she was feeling and… Nope, nothing for him. Just relief and happiness that her beautiful girl was here.

‘The thing is, I’ve just found out…’ he began again, and Orla took one hand off her child and held it up.

‘No more, Kyle. Whatever else you need to get off your chest can wait until morning. Or the next day. Or the next. Because, right now, all that matters to me is this little girl. And that’s the way it’s always going to be, so I think it’s time for you to go.’

* * *

Maddie

6.15 a.m.

‘You can do this, pet. You really can. That epidural is about to kick in and it’ll take the edge right off those contractions, I promise you.’

Maddie’s hair was wet and soaked to her forehead, her throat was raw, and it was hard to breathe through the pain that was in her body and in her heart. ‘Val, I want my mum. I really, really want my mum here too.’

Two huge tears dropped from the blue eyeliner on Val’s lower lids. ‘I know, ma darlin’. I know. But she is here. I promise you she’s in the room right now, just like she was there when we went to speak to her that day. She’s here.’

Maddie gritted her teeth as another contraction came crashing in. Jessie squeezed one hand, and at the other side of her, Val squeezed the other. Alyssa was beside Val, who was nowrepeating the things they’d learned at antenatal class, saying, ‘Come on, Maddie, breathe with me. One, two, three, four, in out, in out, that’s it.’

As the pain began to ease off, Maddie flopped her head back on the bed. On a logical level, she knew that she’d been in labour for about ten hours, but on a physical level, it felt like she’d been breathing through the contractions for about a week and a half. She’d cried, she’d wailed, and now she was making a silent plea to her mum for help, to bring this baby into the world safe and healthy. And to let Maddie survive the kind of pain she never knew existed.

Through it all, Val, Jessie and Alyssa had been with her. They’d cheered at midnight when the bells rang out through the city to bring in the new year, and then seconds later they’d held her hands again as another contraction tore through her.