Kate barely listened as her mind processed the possibility of Rachel and Pete having an illicit affair behind her back, shagging in the downstairs loo while she was upstairs with the kids, before dismissing it again. It just didn’t feel right, like putting together the wrong pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and finding that they won’t fit no matter how much you think they should. And anyway, it would take quite some balls for Rachel to turn up at work as normal if she knew that Pete had left her.
Rachel had worked for them for five years. Kate hadn’t wanted to hire a nanny at first because she wasn’t working, so having extra help seemed like far too much of an indulgence. But it was Pete who had persuaded her to get help. He was doing it for her of course, he could see that she was struggling with parenthood, the anxiety and relentlessness of caring for two tiny beings who relied on her for everything. Maggie was a tiny baby and Lily was in her terrible twos, hurling herself on the floor in protest at pretty much anything and everything, wreaking havoc wherever possible.
Kate sat on the floor one evening, surrounded by a sea of toys, and dirty nappies, her nipples blistered from breastfeeding and her mind addled from sleep deprivation, and sobbed. Pete discovered her still sitting there when he got home late from work and did what he normally did in a crisis – he threw money at it.
‘Just for a few months,’ he had assured her. ‘We can afford it, so why make life harder for yourself than it needs to be? Give yourself a break, Kate.’ She had reluctantly called a few nanny agencies and a week later Rachel turned up on their doorstep for an interview, wearing an oversized yellow parka, red Doc Martens and a confident, all-knowing expression as if she’d drifted down from the sky like a modern-day Mary Poppins to save their family. Within a few months, Rachel had become such an integral cog in their family life that Kate couldn’t imagine life without her. Order, routine and calm were restored and Kate felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her. After weeks, months, maybe years of struggle if she was being honest, she could finally glimpse a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel again.
With more time on her hands and a new zest for life, she had begun to formulate plans of relaunching her career, setting up as a freelancer so that she could work flexibly around family life. Full of renewed vigour, she had started thinking of company names, registering domains and creating social media accounts for her new public relations business. Her head was full of ideas and plans which she had shared with Pete in the evening over dinner and she knew he was thrilled by her enthusiasm and purpose. He’d always told her that one of the things he loved most about her was her drive and determination and she knew she hadn’t been showing much of those qualities for a while, when simply getting through the day had been exhausting enough. Finally, the confident, capable Kate he’d fallen in love with was back.
For a few weeks the atmosphere in the house had been charged with energy and optimism for the first time since she’d gone on maternity leave. She couldn’t wait for him to come home from work, not so that she could have a break from the children but so she could tell him about what she’d been doing that day to prepare the new business. It felt like the old days again.
But at the point when she had to turn her well-organised plans into reality, she had become gripped by fear and doubt and it suddenly seemed too overwhelming. The first few enthusiastic emails she’d sent out to old work contacts offering her services had been either unanswered or responded to with a friendly but dismissive no thanks, but we’ll certainly keep your details on file. Each rejection took away a bit more of her confidence. She started to have second thoughts. Her clients would have moved on, she thought, and she hadn’t kept in touch with any of her friends from the PR agency. Babies had taken over her life and her ability to maintain old friendships with anyone who didn’t have kids themselves. She was too embarrassed to contact them now, out of the blue, to beg for work or contacts. She knew the old Kate would have swallowed her pride, gritted her teeth and pushed herself out of her comfort zone to go after what she wanted. That headstrong, confident, career woman version of herself seemed a distant memory now. The insecurities continued to seep into her already anxious mind – she hadn’t worked in years. Would she even be any good anymore? She hadn’t kept up with the changes and the industry was so full of young, capable people, who knew the right people in the right places. Why would anyone want her? How could she justify charging clients a fee when she no longer considered herself an expert in her field? She was a bloody fraud, a joke, that’s what she was, and everyone would know it.
So, like many great plans, they fell by the wayside. The months went by and Rachel stayed on, outperforming in her own role as their family manager, and leaving Kate oscillating between relief that she had her support, shame that she couldn’t manage on her own with the kids or restart her career, irritation with Rachel for being better than her, and annoyance with herself for feeling like that about someone so lovely. It was exhausting, all that self-doubt, and she was just so tired. One day, she told herself, one day soon I’ll get it all sorted but just not right now.
It was around that time she had decided they should
