Dave nodded. ‘It sounds like a great place. They say they know the focus of our charity has changed, but if only someone could come down and see them, then we would reconsider.’
‘I’ll go,’ said Sam, feeling a frisson of excitement at the thought of taking on a little bit of work. It was as if a little bit of her was coming back. ‘We can’t leave them in the lurch. It’ll be good to ease myself back into work slowly. Don’t worry, Dave, your contract is safe. I’m not coming back early.’
‘How could you, with that little pet?’ he asked, grinning. ‘I’ve got three kids and leaving them each morning is hell. Kids change everything – total world shift on the axis sort of thing.’
Sam nodded, smiling at the tableau where Gareth was instructing a nervous Rosalind in how to hold a baby.
‘Yup: it’s a total world shift. You said it. My sister used to laugh when I said I thought life would be the same but just with a baby. I get it now.’
And she did. Even if she was offered the world’s best job, it would still come second to India.
She was still smiling at that thought when she got home and began to put a nearly asleep India, tired from her morning out, down into the cot.
The doorbell rang and the dogs started their normal manic barking.
‘Oops, someone coming to see us,’ she said, mentally planning to figure out how to make the dogs bark less noisily and the doorbell ring less loudly. But India was awake now. Sam picked her up again. When she’d dispatched the visitor, she’d do the sleeping routine once more. Outside the nursery, the dogs were dancing with excitement.
‘Hush,’ she said, as they kept dancing when she opened the door.
There, looking as dressed up as ever but not quite as calm as she normally looked, was her mother.
‘Why are you here, is it Dad? Is he OK?’ said Sam, taking a step backwards.
‘Yes,’ said her mother, ‘your father is absolutely fine. I just wanted to come and see you.’
‘Why?’ Sam’s shock couldn’t have been more evident and her mother looked uncomfortable.
‘I don’t need an excuse to come and see my daughter,’ she said and some of the recently subsided anger burned up again inside Sam.
‘Mother, you’re the woman who sent me emails to find out how I was during pregnancy,’ she said wryly. ‘You almost never visit, so yes, I’m shocked.’
‘Can I come in?’
‘Sure,’ said Sam in crisp tones.
She didn’t feel like pretending. Her mother had interrupted her lovely day.
Sam talked to her father most days, twice some days, and he made every excuse to come over and see India, bringing her books and adorable toys so that the nursery was already overstocked. Ted was worse. Every day, he came home with something new.
‘You’re a shopaholic,’ Sam teased him.
‘I’m a family-aholic,’ Ted would say, holding India in his arms and leaning against his wife, sighing.
Her mother only came on official visits with her husband.
‘Sit?’ said Sam to her mother, gesturing to a chair.
She thought if she kept this in the one-syllable department she might just be able to cope. A few minutes ago she’d been feeling better, but there was a limit to what antidepressants could do. The doctor had said no stress, after all. Perhaps stress ruined the positive effects of the drugs?
‘I came to see how you were doing since you haven’t been well,’ her mother said.
Sam felt her annoyance rise. Taking antidepressants would no doubt be a sign of weakness of character to her mother.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, which was true, now.
‘Your father told me you were suffering from post-natal depression,’ her mother said.
And even hearing the words come out of her mother’s mouth heightened Sam’s irritation.
