The rest of the day passed in a gratifying blur of meetings and phone calls. With the exception of a message from Lucy late afternoon and a call from Chris at lunchtime, she’d not had chance to think of her family, but as she sat with a cup of green tea reading over some documents, she wondered if she could leave in a few minutes and make it home in time for dinner.

She opened her laptop and scanned her diary. Her only appointment the following morning was Rose Aiker at eleven o’clock. She would go home and take Rose’s file with her to read after Jamie had gone to bed. Chris wouldn’t mind. He probably had his own work to do anyway and with no dinner to prepare or laundry to deal with, she would have plenty of time to review everything. Anyway, if she got her way, the case would be handed over to one of her team. Satisfied with her plan, Claire packed her bag and left the office, eager to see her sons.

6

Claire sat back, happy but exhausted in her chair at the office on Friday afternoon. One week done. She heaved a sigh of relief that nothing disastrous had gone wrong, either on the work or the home front. It had been the right decision. There had been a small part of her that had worried she would hate working full-time and missing out on seeing Jamie and Joshua in the afternoons and catching up with them about their day. And if she was honest, she did miss it, but it was a price worth paying in her opinion.

When she’d been working as a professional support lawyer, she’d ended up doing mainly predictable contract and administration work and her heart simply wasn’t in it. And even though it had only been three mornings a week, she’d always been rushing. Rushing to drop Jamie off at playgroup, rushing through her job, rushing to pick him up and then rushing to make dinner, not to mention feeding Joshua and all his friends.

Now, she knew she had the whole day, five days a week to dedicate to her career and with Lucy watching Jamie and checking in on Joshua in the afternoons and doing all the domestic side of things, she felt much more relaxed. Even Chris had agreed they should have hired extra help sooner. If anyone appreciated a spotless house and home-cooked meal, it was Chris. He was slightly old-fashioned that way. Claire blamed his mother – she’d done everything for him growing up. What was great about Lucy was that she did the job well, but she also did it happily. She’d brought good energy into the house, thought Claire one evening when she’d come in late from work.