The Surrogate

His worst fear

Monday September 5th.

Holly plonks the bottle of freshly made baby formula next to a jug of cool water. Feeling exhausted, she's running on autopilot, certain that she looks like a zombie as well as feeling like one.

She moves to hover near the kitchen sink as the nausea strikes again and minutes later she's sick, though she's not really got anything to bring up as she's not eaten since she managed a couple of slices of toast the night before.

She's on her own in the house at the moment while Heike has popped out to the nearest town to visit the supermarket and get the list of things they were running low on. Seb will be home soon, grabbing some time off until he's on the road again on Wednesday morning to head to Monza, Italy, and so it'll be one less thing for him to do. Emilia's hungry, angry cries can be heard over the baby monitor, seeming to echo through the quietness but it doesn't register with Holly who's completely zoned out right now.

"Mum, are you being sick?"

Her eyes pop wide open as she suddenly remembers that she was in the middle of a hands free phone call with Imogen.

"Mum? Is everything ok there?"

She stands upright and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand before turning on the hot tap to rinse the sink out. "I'm fine," she replies, "everything is fine."

"I thought I heard you throwing up."

"I did, I don't feel too great today, think I must have got a bug of some kind," it's a half lie, half truth and it makes the guilt inside her seem magnified.

"Is Emilia ok? She's screaming," Imogen asks, sounding concerned.

It's at this moment that the baby's cries finally register with her brain once more and she throws a cursory glance towards the ceiling, wishing that Emilia would learn some patience - which is a crazy thing to expect a five and a half week old baby to do. "She's fine, just hungry, that's all," she replies as she heads back to the countertop where she's left her phone.

"Wow, she really screams," Imogen says, sounding quite surprised at the volume and ferocity of the small baby she can hear.

"I said she's fine," Holly suddenly snaps and then instantly regrets it as she gets a sulky sounding reply.

"I was only saying."

"I know, I'm sorry Immy," she immediately apologises and inside her that little voice strikes up again, telling her what a crap mum she is and she doesn't deserve kids of her own, "I'm just feeling tired and a bit poorly."

"So, you think I can come over next weekend?" Imogen seems to completely ignore what her mum has just said and Holly feels like it's what she deserves.

Next to the phone, sits her box of pills, the ones she's meant to be taking to help her feel better. Trouble is, they keep making her either feel or actually cause her to be sick and she's struggling to take the recommended dose, completely missing days out. And as no one has checked to make sure she's taking them, she's getting away with it.

"Mum? What do you think? Can...."

It's too much. She's got a screaming baby, the voice n her head, Immy going on about coming to stay again and the never ending nausea and she begins to lose it. Slamming a hand down on the counter, Holly sharply yells, "for fucks sake, Immy!" cutting her daughter off.

The phone line suddenly goes dead as Immy ends the call and staring angrily at her phone, with hot tears blurring her eyes, all she can hear is a whistling noise in her ears.

Her chest rises and falls with each breath as she swings from rage to despair and her tears feel like they're scorching down her cheeks while her hands shake.