Gracie by Marie Maxwell Page A

I reckon it will be either a boy or a girl, one or the other. That’s worth putting a couple of bob on down the betting shop,’ Gracie said seriously.
    It was a moment before Sean realised exactly what she’d said.
    ‘You are such a joker, Mrs Donnelly! You fooled me there.’ He laughed. ‘Wait till I tell me Mam what you just said … definitely a boy or a girl … I don’t know!’
    Gracie smiled but said nothing. One of her biggest reliefs was that Sean’s family, especially his mother, lived so far away. He had always talked of them all affectionately but it had only been when they went to Ireland before the wedding to meet them that Gracie had realised how idolised Sean was in his family; in fact, he could do no wrong in their eyes. And Gracie herself was an interloper who could do no right. For some reason his mother seemed to blame her for her precious boy living in England, even though he’d already been there for years before they even got together.
    The days she spent with his family were difficult because it seemed that every five minutes someone else popped up to ask Gracie questions about herself and about their relationship. At first she’d thought it was all rather sweet and that they were simply looking out for Sean, the family baby, but as time passed and the questions became more probing she started to wonder if there was something they weren’t telling her.
    His sisters especially wanted to know every single thing about Gracie herself. When the questioning had first started she’d thought they were really interested in her but by the end of the stay she felt they really wanted to find something out of the ordinary so they could all shrug over the dinner table and say ‘we always knew she wasn’t right for our baby boy.’
    The only time she felt comfortable in the conversation was when Sean’s father was around. He was a genial man and she could see he had given up the fight in much the same way as her father always had. Surrounded by women at home, he never got involved in the family arguments, but simply let everything wash over him and disappeared off to his local pub at the first opportunity.
    But after they arrived back home Gracie had brushed all her concerns about the family away and got into the swing of arranging the wedding. She decided that so long as there was a distance between herself and Sean’s family it wouldn’t be a problem, that back in Southend it would just be the two of them in their new life together. But then there had been the visit for the wedding.
    The time his mother had spent in Ruby’s hotel before and after the big day had been excruciatingly embarrassing and Gracie still cringed when she thought back to it. Because her son was marrying Gracie who was Ruby’s friend, she seemed to think it gave her some authority, and she had tried her best to assert herself as the matriarch of the property. To Gracie’s horror and Ruby’s amusement Sean’s mother had constantly aired her complaints about the hotel and everyone in it.
    Despite the fact that he had moved away from home so many years before, Sean’s doting mother still thought she knew him best. As well as lots of lectures on housekeeping generally, she had given Gracie a carefully written list of all his likes and dislikes, his food preferences and how best to launder and care for his clothes; she had also criticised the flat that was to be their new home.
    It had been at that point that Ruby had taken her friend to one side and made Gracie realise that none of it was personal, that the woman had never got over her precious baby boy leaving home and moving to another country and she would never be happy until he was back home with her.
    Now, she could easily imagine how the woman would react to news of the pregnancy and she had frightening visions of her turning up on the doorstop and overseeing the birth and care of her beloved son’s firstborn.
    But nothing could dampen the mood for Gracie, not even