Page 26 of The Baby Plan

Working herself up further, she irrationally felt she should leave, but she couldn’t afford to live anywhere else at the moment, and she was loath to uproot Alana again — the baby adored her father, despite the short amount of time she’d known him, and seemed to have settled brilliantly into his home. And what would she do about childcare without Samson so handily around?

She also didn’t know how Samson would react if she said she and Alana were leaving. He was completely serious about wanting a relationship with his daughter, and Sophie didn’t want him to decide she was trying to stop this and potentially end up in an unnecessary legal battle, which she could well lose if it were discovered how short a time she’d known her niece.

Her one other, inconceivable, option would be to move out by herself and leave Alana with Samson. That would certainly make it a lot easier for her to work, but there was no way Sophie could ever consider it. She loved Alana. Sophie was now the closest thing her niece had to a mother, and she was determined to play a major part in her upbringing.

No, the best plan was to stay with Samson for the time being, at least until she was more financially stable. Then she could continue with the process of getting a formal arrangement worked out, so she had some official guardianship powers.

She eventually managed to get to sleep in the early hours of the morning, when her frazzled mind finally gave in to her body’s need for rest.

* * *

Sophie forced herself up early the next morning, resolute that today she was not going to be blindsided in her pyjamas again by random beautiful girlfriends in the kitchen.

She heard Alana beginning to stir as she got out of a super quick shower. She hurried out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, but Samson was already at her niece’s bedroom door.

“I’ll get her while you sort yourself out,” he said gesturing to the towel turban on her head. Embarrassed at being caught looking a mess yet again, Sophie mumbled, “Thanks, I’ll be down soon,” as she scuttled to the safety of her room.

She actually took her time getting dressed and drying her hair, then put on some subtle make-up. Samson and Alana would be fine together for a few extra minutes, and she wanted to appear half-decent when she went downstairs.

Samson didn’t hear her coming along the hall over the sound of the radio he had on and she stood in the kitchen doorway watching Samson and Alana together. Samson was giving his daughter her bottle. ‘All You Need is Love’ by the Beatles was playing, and Samson sang along softly to Alana. They both appeared mesmerised by one another; the bond between father and daughter was already so strong.

Sophie’s heart ached. They seemed so perfect together, a little unit. She felt like a complete outsider and, for a brief moment, more alone than she’d ever felt before, even when she was living by herself after her parents had died. Samson and Alana didn’t require her, especially with Helena able to take on the role of mother to her niece. Was she being a complete fool imagining Alana needed her at all?

* * *

Over the following week, Sophie did her best to keep her life as separate from Samson’s as possible, while co-parenting Alana, even finally making the trip to London to finish emptying her flat using her own car, which had definitely been a squeeze. The large weekly schedule they’d hashed out, and she’d insistently stuck on the fridge, definitely helped.

Pleasingly, the feelers she’d put out yielded some accounting work. She officially registered herself as self-employed with the taxman and updated her LinkedIn profile. It felt like she was properly moving herself and Alana forward.

Helena was, unfortunately, around the house a lot, which made things extremely difficult. Sophie couldn’t help but feel Samson’s girlfriend was marking her territory. She was either lounging around in the kitchen, being cooked for by Samson and idly flicking through fashion magazines or contorting herself into bizarre yoga positions in the den and glaring at Sophie if she dared to bring Alana in to watch an episode of Peppa Pig. A cat would spend less time preening and lazing about.

Sophie was very grateful for her new friendship with Julia. She now braved taking Alana to a couple of baby groups each week, and either to the park or Julia’s flat most days. She hadn’t brought her friend round to Samson’s house, worried Helena would be there. She’d explained how awkward her situation was to Julia, who’d proved a very good sounding board, preventing Sophie’s tendency of introspection and over-analysing from completely driving her demented.

Returning from Julia’s one afternoon, Sophie found Helena once again at the kitchen table. Samson was making tea and took Alana from Sophie when her mobile began ringing. Sophie went out into the garden to answer it.

When she returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, Samson was playing with Alana and Helena was fiddling with her phone.

“Are you able to look after Alana tomorrow?” Sophie asked hopefully. “That call was an old client of mine. He’s leaving the company I used to work for and wants me to go to London to see what I can do for him. I’d be gone the whole day, but it should mean a nice lot of work coming my way.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, but I can’t,” Samson answered. “I’ve got an inspection on an office building I’ve been consulting on. It’s been organised for weeks and isn’t something I can change. It’s on the planner.”

“Maybe my friend Julia could help...” Sophie was already dialling Julia’s number and heading back out into the garden so she could make the call in private.

She returned, despondent, a couple of minutes later. She’d forgotten Julia was heading up to Yorkshire to visit her family.

“Any luck?” Samson asked.

“No. I’ll call and see if there’s any way it can be rescheduled.” Sophie absentmindedly passed Alana a rice cake from an open packet on the table as she tried to figure out the best way to work things. She didn’t want to lose what could be a very good client.

“Don’t worry,” said Samson, “we’ll sort it. Um... have you got anything on tomorrow, Helena? I don’t suppose you’d be able to do it?”

Sophie cringed inside: please let her be busy, please let her have to go to ‘Super Power Pilates for Ridiculously Bendy People’ or something.

“Sure, I’ll babysit her,” Helena said idly.

“Really? That’ll be perfect!” and “Oh! Are you sure?” followed practically simultaneously from Samson and Sophie.

“I can babysit her tomorrow,” Helena said slowly and clearly.

---