“Have you talked to Tom about it?”
“I haven’t told him yet. He’s going to be thrilled, I know.”
“But if you’re not thrilled...” Rachel suggested cautiously. “There are options, Emily.”
Emily stared at her for a moment before a look of horrified comprehension crossed her face and she shook her head quickly. “Oh, no. No, I don’t think I could do that. I mean, I might not want to be pregnant, but when I think of Riley and Rogan... There’s a little person in there. A mini me-and-Tom.”
“Okay.” Rachel shrugged, not wanting to push it. Emily had placed her hand on her middle and was smiling tentatively, as if she needed to give herself permission to be happy.
“It’s just going to be hard, you know? And I’m so tired. But I don’t regret it, either, not exactly. If that makes sense.”
“It does.” Rachel had never really thought she and Emily Hart had much in common. She’d looked down on Emily a little bit, for being so well off and yet still moaning about life.
But now, for the first time, Rachel could see the conundrum Emily was in. It was the same one she was in: feeling trapped yet not quite sure she actually wanted life to be different. She wouldn’t wish Lily away, or the years she’d spent taking care of her. She couldn’t wish Nathan away either, or how much time she spent with him. Sometimes her life felt small and suffocating and intolerable, but it was still her life and she loved everyone in it. Even Meghan.
Sighing, Rachel rose from the table and put her mug in the sink. “You look knackered, Emily. Maybe you should go kip upstairs for a bit. I can watch the boys while I tidy up.”
Emily looked up from her tea, her expression guiltily hopeful. “Oh, I don’t know. Are you sure... ?”
“Yes,” Rachel answered, suppressing a sigh. “I’m sure.”
Of course, the second Emily closed her bedroom door, the theme music ofThomas the Tank Enginecame on, signaling the end of the show, and Riley and Rogan came trotting into the kitchen while Rachel was getting out the mop.
“Hello, you two,” she said. “Are you going to be helpers?”
Three hours later Rachel acknowledged what wishful thinking that had been. Riley and Rogan did not have the word “helpful” in their admittedly very limited vocabulary. Emily had slept for the entire time Rachel cleaned the house, wiping up the dirty water the boys spilled when they tipped over her pail and keeping their hands from reaching inside the toilet as sheattempted to scrub it. By five o’clock she was both filthy and exhausted.
Emily staggered out of her bedroom just as Rachel was packing up, making a little more noise than she usually would in the hope that she’d awaken Sleeping Beauty.
“Had a nice nap?” she called brightly as Emily stumbled down the stairs, rubbing her eyes and yawning.
“Yes, yes. Thank you so much. . . .”
She smiled at Rachel as Riley and Rogan came tumbling towards her and then tackled her around the knees.
“It was no bother,” Rachel said, and despite the three hours of total hassle, she meant it.
She was just getting into her car when her mobile rang and she saw with a wary ripple of pleasure that it was Andrew.
“Hey,” she greeted him as she closed the car door.
“I was just checking to see if you got home safely.”
“Considering it’s two days later, you’d better hope I had.” She found herself smiling.
He chuckled softly, the sound weirdly intimate on the phone. “True enough. That was really just an excuse, anyway. I wanted to talk to you.”
“You did?” She felt another silly smile spread over her face.
“Yes. To make sure you aren’t annoyed with me for nagging you.”
“I wouldn’t call it nagging, exactly.”
“Irritating you, then.”
“You were right, though,” she answered. “Sort of.”
“So are you going to think about what I said?”
