And she was so tired. Growing a human being was so much more tiring than she had imagined possible. How had the human race survived this long?
As for the breastfeeding lark . . . she was terrified of it. Other mothers-to-be might decide easily to bottle-feed but Sam had the weight of years of trying for a baby behind her. Breast, as every advert reminded her, was best, and she was scared of messing that up too.
She asked her sister for an opinion:
‘I breastfed for six months with all three girls, but that was just me. There’s enough pressure on women to get everything right. Do what feels right to you,’ said Joanne firmly.
Sam couldn’t explain that the person pressurising her to get everything right was herself.
Their mother, who could certainly spell the word maternal – possibly in Ancient Greek as well – had never worried about such a thing. She’d gone back to work as soon as she possibly could.
Ted stirred in the bed and Sam looked up from the mirror.
In sleep, he looked even more handsome: a cross between a Southern-talkin’ Matthew McConaughey and that guy who did the aftershave ads for Dolce and had an eight-pack. Once, Sam would have been tempted to sinuously insert herself into bed with her husband and indulge in some hot, speedy sex.
Ha! Who was that woman and where had she gone?
Instead of any sex-related activities, she wriggled into insanely expensive black maternity leggings. Who knew that a roundy bit added on in the belly department could increase the price of leggings by 250 per cent?
She added wedge boots and a floaty charcoal shirt that swung around her body. Businesslike and pregnant: result. Her face was still slim, with its firm chin, almond-shaped dark eyes like her father’s, and a mouth that allowed her to wear power red lipsticks when she wore power business suits.
It was nearly seven. She was running late. Sam liked to be in the office by eight.
Ted moaned a little and rolled over, happily.
Sam grinned evilly and contemplated kicking him. It was his baby too. He was not getting fat, sweaty and up four times a night to pee. His hair didn’t look like he’d been electrocuted in the night.
Strange women in QuikShop who had never before spoken to him did not suddenly strike up conversations with him. Pregnancy had not turned him into a commercial property.
No, his friends thumped him triumphantly on the back as if Sam being pregnant was a sign of wild virility and a willy fit for a porn movie.
‘Dat’s my boy!’
‘Whadda man!’
Sam wished she’d gone in for baseball in school so she’d have a bat with which to whack them all over the head.
Sam looked at her reflection in the mirror. She could handle being a mother. Women had been doing it for years, after all. She had to stop worrying – that would be bad for the baby.
For most of her working life, Sam had worked in banking, where she got to use her master’s in economics. She’d worked in a major bank for the past ten years until finally, worn out by fertility treatment and office politics, she’d decided to restructure her life.
She did a part-time philanthropic course and, over a year, decided that she’d like to work in the charity sector.
Ted backed her totally, as did her father.
‘You’ve got to follow your heart, love,’ said Ted as they talked about it endlessly and what it might mean for them financially.
‘Yes, but what about the money? Following my heart won’t pay the mortgage, will it?’
He held her close and kissed her on her temple, which was somehow one of the most comforting gestures she’d ever felt. ‘We’ll manage. We can take in lodgers. I vote for good-looking young women from cold countries who can’t cope with Dublin’s wild heat and have to strip off as soon as they get home from work.’
‘No, young men from cold countries,’ said Sam, snuggling closer. ‘Ones who do extreme gym time and are spectacularly handsome but have no idea of how gorgeous they are, and spend all their time having showers and walking round afterwards with towels hanging off their hips, showing off . . . what’s that bit of muscle just below the abs, the deep V if someone works out a lot?’
‘Maybe no lodgers, then . . .?’
Sam laughed, delighted with her teasing. ‘Deal. But really, money . . .?’
‘We’ll manage. If you hate charity work, you can always prostrate yourself on the altar of big banking again. You are eminently employable. Plus, you have the iPhone footage of your boss at the Christmas party three years ago, right?’ he joked.
Sam laughed again. She loved this man. ‘Blackmail my boss if I hate charity work? Me likee. Now that’s a working plan.’
They had savings and a financial portfolio that Sam managed herself. Their only big spending over the past few years had been fertility treatments and Sam would never allow herself to see it as wasted money. Trying for a beloved child had been their dream: to belittle the money spent on it would be to belittle that lovely, but failed dream.
Sam’s search for a new life led to her discreetly checking out which charities were hiring.
Then she heard about Cineáltas. A forty-five-year-old charity set up to help sufferers with dementia, Cineáltas meant kindness in the Irish language and had been established by Edward Beveldon, a wealthy Anglo-Irish man whose beloved wife, Maud, had been ravaged by the disease. Edward had long gone and his son, Maurice, now past seventy, ran the charity himself.
By all accounts, Maurice’s father had been a fabulous man – able to persuade rich people to put vast sums into the charity. But under Maurice’s aegis, the organisation had fallen apart. Until the hugely successful but highly reclusive businessman, Andrew Doyle, had come along.
Joanne had pushed her to apply for the top job.
‘I’m a newbie at this. Presumably he’s hiring more than a chief executive,’ Sam said.
‘Sure he is, but you should aim high,’ Joanne said. ‘Go for the big job. Get your power red lipstick out and go in all guns blazing.’
In her interview, Sam had found herself almost talking herself out of a job.
‘What I want to know,’ she said, facing down Andrew, who was the entire interview panel, ‘is why you don’t try to merge Cineáltas with the Alzheimer’s Society of Ireland. That makes more sense.’
Andrew gave her the cool look she had already read about in many business magazines, a look that was supposed to send executives scurrying away with fear.
‘It’s because I want to set up an entirely new sort of charity,’ he said. ‘I want to focus on serious corporate fundraising for research as well as offering the sort of support that my parents got in the final days. I want to link up with research teams all over the world so we can make a difference worldwide.’