Page 7 of One Day at a Time

‘That sounded better in my head. I just meant… I have feelings for you. More than friend-type feelings.’

How had she not noticed that? Between her grief, her dismantled life and feeling untethered by everything that had happened in the last year, she hadn’t given romance a thought. Although if she had…

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

He shrugged. ‘I figured it was giving you a complication you didn’t need and might not want. You needed a friend. Nothing more. I didn’t want to mess that up.’

‘I think you’re right about all of that,’ she admitted, and she didn’t miss the slump of his shoulders as she said it. ‘But now that I come to think of it, maybe I needed a distraction too.’

Without giving it any thought, or stopping to consider her actions, she leaned over and she kissed him.

Those goodbyes were happening tomorrow. But for now, she had an idea about how they could spend the time until they had to say them.

3

ORLA FERGUSON

‘…And in non-medical patient news, I caught Mrs Colquhoun in bed four feeding Mr Graham a strawberry tart today and he was supposed to be nil by mouth. Thankfully, his op has been postponed until tomorrow. Mrs Finch and Mrs Cotter in room two had a wee singalong last night and I thinkBritain’s Got Talentshould know about them. And Mr Lewis in room six threw his slipper at me when it was time for a bed bath. Apart from that, it’s all calm and running like a dream,’ Orla Ferguson, nurse on the Elderly ward at Glasgow Central Hospital, was delivering the early-morning handover to her friends and colleagues, Charge Nurses Keli Clark and Yvie Danton. Orla normally worked the same rota as them, but she’d swapped today and was ready to get home after her twelve-hour shift.

‘Oh, and I’ve filled the biscuit bin in the staffroom, because that’s the kind of lovely person I am.’ That came from another friend, Emmy Sweeney, who’d just worked the night shift with her.

‘I knew there was a reason I liked you,’ Yvie said, as she picked up one of the ward iPads and prepared to get to work onthe morning tasks. ‘And while I appreciate the bribery, Emms, you’re still not keeping Orla on your rota. This was a one-time deal, and we demand her safe return to our shift tomorrow.’

Emmy sighed. ‘Fine. But I’ll be taking the biscuits back then.’

Orla giggled and not even the other slipper that came flying out of Mr Lewis’s room could shake her mood. She had thirty-six hours off from this moment. And not just any thirty-six hours. Today was the very last day of April and her monthly ovulation test kit had determined that she had just entered her peak fertility window.

Emmy and Keli broke off into their own conversation about ward matters, allowing Orla to have a quiet word with Yvie. ‘Thanks again for being so flexible with my shifts this month. I really do appreciate it.’ It had just taken one phone call to Yvie, with the results of her test kit, and her friend had rearranged the ward schedules for her.

‘You don’t have to thank me. I’ll make your shifts work any way you need them to, you know that. We’re all rooting for you. And for Kyle too, obviously.’ She paused, before adding, ‘But mostly you, because there’s no way he’d be able to work twelve hours in this little slice of paradise and still be smiling.’

Orla picked up the slipper and handed it over to Yvie, thinking that she would always be grateful that she’d made the move from Cork. Much as she’d loved her life and her job in her home city, when she’d met and fallen in love with a man from Glasgow, it had made so much more sense for them to move here because Kyle’s job as the manager of his family’s construction company wasn’t one that was transferrable to Ireland. It had been a tough adjustment when she’d first arrived. Newly married, and settling into an area she didn’t know, she’d worked in a private hospital just outside the city for her first year. Then, one day she’d been having a coffee in a café just five minutesfrom the hospital, and she’d struck up a conversation with a group at the next table. It was Yvie, Emmy and Keli, having lunch on their day off. They’d told her about a job vacancy on their ward and Orla had submitted an application before the day was out. It wasn’t a coincidence. Orla didn’t believe in those. But she did believe in fate. Destiny. Or whatever cosmic force had led them all to be there that day. Back then, the most she’d hoped for was that she would enjoy the day-to-day work, but the friends she’d made here had been a huge extra bonus. Yvie, Emmy and Keli were a ready-made friendship group, and she’d been welcomed right in.

Handover finished, she headed to the staffroom with Emmy and they grabbed their jackets, then took the lift to the ground floor and joined the others leaving the building at the end of their shifts. Outside, the sun was shining, and it was finally getting light in the mornings. It was the one thing she would change about living in Scotland. In the winter, it was dark until almost 9a.m., and the sun set before 4p.m., so if she was on a block of day shifts, she could go days without seeing daylight, other than through a window on the ward. Winter consisted of life under those horrible hospital lights, counting down the days until spring.

‘What’s the plan for today then?’ Emmy asked her, as they cut across the car park to their cars. Almost the moment it was out her mouth, she immediately backtracked on the question and covered her ears. ‘Noooooo, don’t say it. I’ve just remembered why you swapped your shift and there are some things that I don’t need to see in my imagination. Anything to do with your ovaries or your naked husband falls into that category.’

‘Then don’t ask me what I’ve been up to when you see me again at handover in thirty-six hours’ time,’ Orla said, the laughter distracting her from the anxiety that was already beginningto tighten in her chest at the thought of yet another attempt to get pregnant.

Of course all her friends knew about her baby hopes and they’d been with her every step of the way for the last year. As Yvie had said, they were always happy to swap shifts or cover for her if she had to take an extra day off. Although, they had stipulated many times that if she had a girl, she had to be named Yvie Keli Emmy Ferguson.

‘Right. Noted. I’m just going to imagine that you’re spending the next day and a half binge-watching every series ofBelow Deck Down Under. Mainly because that’s probably what I’m going to be doing because Cormac is on double shifts this week and I’m knackered.’ Emmy’s husband was a firefighter, and if their shifts clashed they could go almost a whole week and only see each other in for brief moments as one was coming home and one was leaving – something Orla was grateful for, because it gave her someone to hang out with when Kyle was working overtime. Which he seemed to be doing constantly lately.

They said their goodbyes and Orla climbed up into Kyle’s Nissan Navara pick-up truck. Not the most economical of cars, and a fortune to insure, ever since it became the go-to vehicle for criminals hellbent on pulling ATM machines out of stone walls, but her old battered, beloved Mini Cooper had given up on life a couple of months ago, so Kyle was letting her borrow it. He had the use of the company vans, so he was just bringing one of them home at night. He wasn’t thrilled about it, and she would have to buy a new car soon, but right now, other things took priority.

She’d just manoeuvred it out of the car park when her phone rang, as it always did around half an hour after the end of every shift. Her mum had a copy of her rota, so she always knew when to call.

‘Good morning, Mam.’ Just saying those words made theanxiety loosen its grip just a little more. ‘How are you doing today?’

From the noise in the background, Orla guessed her mam was in a moving vehicle. It wasn’t a surprise. For the last ten years, since she’d retired from a forty-year career in nursing, her mum had worked for the Red Cross in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America and could be dispatched at a moment’s notice to help deliver humanitarian aid and human care. For the last two weeks, she’d been on the road, delivering medical supplies to a remote area of Angola that had been afflicted by severe flooding.

‘Good morning, my love. Just checking in, but I’m about to lose signal, so don’t be fretting if we get cut off.’

Sometimes her mam could be out of signal for days at a time, but Orla had learned not to worry. It was just one of the sacrifices that came with a job that was truly her mother’s life’s passion.

‘That’s okay, Mam. Are you good?’

‘Just grand. It’s over ninety degrees and I’ve got sweat running down my back, and I’m going to need a hip replacement after eight hours in this truck, but apart from that, I’m great.’