Surrogate Pregnancy

Chapter Seven Part 8

The next day Lydia was on her way to visit Kathleen on her camel farm, when she was rammed from the left, by a large truck coming out of nowhere. It was her luck she was in the other side, as the left side of the car was completely pushed in. Lydia lost consciousness for a few minutes, and then looked up into a truck driver's very worried face.

"What happened?" she mumbled, feeling dizzy. She was lying on a blanket at the road side. He assured her he had called the ambulance. And she should just lie still...impossible, no body that pregnant could lie on their back, except when unconscious. She quickly turned on her side.

Leon heard about the accident. He had gone to her place knowing she was off duty. A nurse just coming from the hospital, told him. "An accident, outside Alice Springs, nobody knows how bad it is."

He felt his world crashing, the shock of his parent's accident coming back to haunt him with a vengeance. He sat down on a bench in emergency to wait, unable to think coherently. Someone gave him a glass of water. When she arrived, it slowly dawned on him she was in one piece, and had her eyes open.

He rushed to her. "Are you okay?" Her face was pale, her eyes brimming with tears. Her left temple was purple, and a large lump was forming. He was pushed away, and she was rolled into a cubicle, and followed by both doctors and nurses. Someone closed the curtains , and when he shoved signs of following them, an orderly took his arm and steered him away. "Rest for a minute mate," he said, and left him sitting on the bench again. Later he visited her in the ward; she had been admitted for observations overnight. He had been thinking. She was picked up outside Alice, what had she been doing, running away with his babies? He was both happy to see her relatively unharmed, and angry and upset. Because he did not know where she had been going. She was sleeping, her face still very pale, and there was smudges under her eyes She was a sorry sight, but he hardened himself. He touched one of her hands, so small and fragile. She opened her eyes "Leon" she whispered, "What happened?"

He scowled, "You tell me, where were you going?"

Opening her eyes wide Lydia said, "What?"

He realised she was still foggy, and felt bad for his interrogation.

"You were in a small accident." He said, much calmer. Sitting down next to her, he said, "How are you?"

She tried to sit up, but failed and fell back again. "I feel so weak and foggy in my head," she complained. "I was only going out to visit Kathleen, on her camel farm", she sniffed. Leon felt like a heel for thinking bad about her. Then thought, that would be what she would say, even if she had been trying to get away.

At midday the next day she was discharged, with orders to sleep and rest for a week. Leon picked her up and drove her to her flat at the hospital. She wanted to be left alone. The day after his detective arrived and was briefed. Feeling he could do no more at the moment Leon flew home.

Lydia spent the next few days either, sleeping, swimming in the pool or eating. Her friends were eager to supply her with hot and cold meals. She started to feel better by the end of the week, and was ready to start work again. She went part time to have more time to rest, and felt good about that.

The next month went well; she had dinner with Ross a couple of times, and looked after herself. Every now and then she felt watched, but never saw anyone. She talked to her sister several times a week; they were planning to go away together. The two of them could handle the twins and work too.

***

It was a beautiful autumn day in the beginning of March, when the unthinkable happened.

Lydia had been feeling more tired, in spite of having twenty cm wood blocks under the foot of her bed, to sleep with her feet up. She now had oedema of feet and legs, most of the time, and reflux every now and then, if she tried to bend down.