She drove home erratically, her head filled with worry, imagining various scenarios of Julie being hurt, or threatened, or ill, or…she was interrupted by a car beeping at her. When Gill re-joined planet earth, she realised that she had let her car drift over to the wrong side of the road. She tugged at the wheel, and managed to get back on the right side.
The silver car pulled into the drive at a speed and stopped suddenly. Gill ripped her belt off and ran to the front door, manically searching for her keys in her handbag. She found them eventually and stabbed at the key hole with the wrong key at first.
Gill got in and found Sammy sitting at the kitchen table doing homework.
"You alright mum?" he asked noticing the state his mother was in.
"Julie's not been round has she?" Gill asked.
"No, why what's wrong?"
"I don't know…she text me earlier asking if she could stay indefinitely, but she wouldn't answer her phone when I called which, God knows…" Gill said worrying more with every thought, every word.
And with that there was a knock at the front door. Gill rushed to open it. Julie fell in the doorway, straight into Gill's arms, sobbing her heart out. Gill's jaw dropped, she couldn't speak, she didn't know what to say, she just held the broken woman close.
A few minutes passed before Gill spoke. "Come on, let's get you inside" she said, leaving one arm around her back, keeping her upright, and walking into the living room.
As the pair sat down, side by side, Gill spoke again "Talk to me". Julie didn't answer. She pulled a photo out of her jacket pocket and passed it to Gill. Gill smiled and rubbed her thumb over the small, worn photo. It was of a baby girl wrapped in a small pink blanket, couldn't have been more than a few days old.
"Who is it?" she asked, knowing the answer to her own question.
"My daughter…my little girl" Julie mouthed, unable to speak.
"Julie…I…why didn't you tell me?" Gill asked.
"It was years ago, she would have been nineteen now" Julie said drowning in her own thoughts.
"Would have been?" Gill questioned.
"She was only two days old" Julie began. "It was the hospital's fault, they were meant to put her on a ventilator, she couldn't breathe on her own, she was premature. Only they didn't. Turned out a few weeks later that it was the wrong baby, my little girl was still alive, but they couldn't find her, when they did it was too late, she's already gone" Julie sobbed, Gill shed a tear and even Sammy looked watery-eyed.
"I'm so sorry love" Gill cried, holding Julie tighter.
"She would have been nineteen years old today" Julie continued.
"Oh Julie, you should have told me"
"I couldn't, I was coping. But, this case we picked up this morning, it's exactly the same, a new-born baby died, hospital's fault…it just bought it all back that's all" she finished.
"Come here" Gill spoke softly, pulling her back into her own chest.
After hours of sobbing, the night fell and Julie began to settle down. Gill had taken her upstairs and got her into bed. Just as she was dropping off to sleep, there was a persistently loud knock at the door. Sammy went to answer it.
"Where is she?" he asked angrily.