Her Last Tomorrow

Chapter 2

2 Tasha

Sometimes I think the only reason Nick and I have stayed together is because of Ellie. I hate to say it, but it’s probably true. I think it’s something I’ve always known. That’s not to say that we had Ellie so that we wouldn’t break up, but I think deep down I wondered whether it would change our relationship to have a child. It did, but not in the way I’d expected.

The initial joy was over pretty quickly when I told Nick I wanted to go back to work earlier than planned. Earlier than he’d planned, anyway. He wanted me to take the full twenty weeks, telling me we could make do on the statutory allowance. He’s never been one for handling money well, but I would’ve thought even he’d realise that swapping my salary for a hundred and twenty quid a week wasn’t going to cut it. Not with a new child in tow. Not with his income being so unpredictable. If there was one thing I was always sure of, it was that I wanted to be able to provide for my child, to give my child everything she deserved.

We finally agreed on eight weeks, allowing me to keep most of my salary, then going back on the basis that I could work from home two or three days a week. What Nick didn’t know at the time was that I’d already told my manager I’d be back part-time after the minimum two weeks and back to full-time after another six. I don’t like lying, but Nick’s the sort of person you have to lie to occasionally just to make things easier, smooth things over.

When I fell pregnant with Ellie, we’d been trying for years. Over the first couple of years things seemed to be going alright. Work was fairly stale for me, and Nick was still struggling to hawk his first book, but the possibility of having a child was something to cling on to. The dwindling of that possibility seemed to coincide with Nick getting his first book deal and work getting better for me, too, so the thought of having children kind of fell by the wayside.

We’d gone down all sorts of routes and had pretty much come to terms with the fact that nothing was going to happen. I fully expected us to separate within the next few months. I started to take on more responsibilities at work, perhaps partially to distract myself from the toxic atmosphere at home, but mainly because my career had taken off. We’d just taken on a huge new client and I’d been put in charge of managing the project. Three weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.

I was delighted, but at the back of my mind was this constant worry about how I was going to balance a baby and my career. Nick working from home would be a blessing, but I also knew that there was no way he was going to see it like that. He’s all about long walks in the country and idealistic family days out. He never thinks about the fact that we somehow have to pay for all that.

He’s so derisive and dismissive about my job, it makes me sick sometimes. I think he sees me as one of the faceless hordes of commuters that pass our house every morning on the way to the station. I see them, too, on the train, their faces growing more and more haggard every day. I know I’m not one of them because I feel more and more invigorated with each day, excited about the path my career is taking and how it will enable me to build a future for our whole family. But he doesn’t see that. He thinks I’m just doing this for me.

The conference today is a big opportunity. Networking could be vital for building my career further, which would give us more security as a family and give Ellie a better start in life. After all, that’s why any of us go to work, isn’t it? Because we want the best for our families. But does Nick ever see it like that? Does he hell.

I think he projects. That’s Nick’s problem. He can’t come to terms with the fact that it’s his own sense of failure and his own insecurities that are at the root of the problem. He’s so fed up with the fact that he’s been unable to replicate the success of Black Tide that he seems to assume everyone else is a failure too. He’s a good dad, though. Mostly. When it doesn’t involve him having to be organised. He dotes on Ellie, and she loves him, too. Sometimes I look at her and I imagine that I see confusion in her eyes, almost as if she’s unsure as to who I am, as if she sees Nick as the mother figure. I’m sure I’m imagining things, but sometimes I can’t help but feel guilty. And then I remember it’s just Nick projecting and I refuse to let myself feel like that.

I know I’m not a conventional mother. Perhaps it’s my upbringing. My parents aren’t as lovey-dovey as Nick’s were. But that doesn’t mean I love my family any less. He only needs to look at what’s in front of him to see my love for Ellie.

All couples have their ups and downs, and I often feel like we mostly have downs, but then I remember Ellie. Our miracle girl. She’s the reason I work so hard. She’s why I get up at the crack of dawn – and often before it – and come back late at night. I don’t get to see her half as often as I’d like to, but that’s the sacrifice a parent has to make sometimes. What Nick doesn’t see is that I’m doing it for her. For us.