Three Women Read Online Free PDF Page A

them.
    Excited, talking and planning, they forgot the time and got dressed for work in an utter panic.
    ‘I look absolutely shite,’ said Claire. ‘I’m dying with a hangover.’
    ‘I feel like a zombie,’ admitted Nikki. ‘Do I look like one?’
    ‘Yeah, we all look a bit like the walking dead!’ agreed Erin as they left the apartment and made their way slowly to work.

Chapter Six
    ERIN AND CLAIRE had gone for a walk down along Sandymount Strand. It was a beautiful evening, really warm, as they strolled along the seafront overlooking Dublin Bay. Nikki had finally gone to meet Conor and tell him about the baby.
    ‘He’ll drop me the minute he hears about it,’ she sobbed hysterically before she left. Secretly, they both expected that she was right, but they made her calm down and re-do her eye make-up, and then wear one of her hottest dresses. Nikki was gorgeous – how could any guy resist her, even if she
was
pregnant?
    ‘What do you think will happen?’ Erin asked.
    ‘God knows!’ said Claire. ‘Conor really likes Nikki and maybe he won’t mind … Otherwise he is going to freak out and like most guys just walk away. We see it every day in the surgery.’
    ‘I saw some statistic that almost twenty per cent of kids in Ireland are being raised by single parents, and they somehow seem to manage.’
    ‘Would you do it? Have a baby on your own?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Erin. ‘I definitely would. My baby … would be my baby, whether the father was involved or not.’
    Erin had to admit that Nikki’s pregnancy had sparked something she had never expected: it had made her think about her natural mother – the girl who had given birth to her and then had given her up to be adopted. It must have been desperate for her having to make such a choice.
    They walked for about an hour. There were no phone messages from Nikki, so, turning back, they headed home.
    They sat up waiting for her and were so relieved when she finally arrived in. She looked shattered, red-eyed, awful.
    ‘What happened?’ they asked in unison.
    ‘What we expected … Conor is a little shit and wants nothing to do with the baby, but I told him that I was putting his name down on the birth cert for father’s name whether he wanted me to or not!’
    ‘Oh Nikki – we’re so sorry!’
    ‘Don’t be! Imagine me wasting any more of my life going out with that creep?’
    ‘Were you talking to him all this time?’
    ‘No. We had nothing to say to each other, only shout. So I went over to Mum and Dad’s. I was in a right old state!’
    ‘You told them?’
    ‘Yes … They were a bit shocked, but they were great. Mum is all happy that she is going to be a granny – most of her friends already are – and Dad said if the baby’s father won’t step up to the mark, then the baby’s grandfather will …’
    ‘Oh Nikki … I knew that they’d be great about it.’
    ‘Dad says that I have to tell them in work on Monday. He says that I have to stop hiding things, for the baby’s sake.’
    Erin and Claire were so relieved that Nikki was finally coming to terms with having a baby.

Chapter Seven
    NINA GAZED OUT the window as tom and bill and Jack and Erin all were busy at the bottom of the garden. Today was Boat Day – the day Tom moved his beloved old boat down from the rundown coach house that served as a boat house to Dunlaoghaire Harbour, where it would be moored for the rest of the year, until it was lifted up again next winter. It was an all-hands-on-deck event as they lifted the heavy boat up on the tow equipment and attached it to the back of the Volvo, then tried to tow the whole thing down a windy, narrow back road without taking their wall and the neighbours’ walls with them. Nina’s job was to make endless cups of tea, soup and sandwiches for the hardy workers, and then have a big warming stew for when they all returned from having the first sail of the year and ensuring that the boat was safely moored in its annual berth.
    She