The Surrogate

Cole deliberately waited up for Joyce to come home, it was past midnight when she staggered in and saw him standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.

"It's about time you came home, and you're stinking drunk," he barked at her. Her hair was a mess and the top three buttons on her dress were open. It didn't take a genius to know what she had been up to when he noticed her lipstick was smeared.

"Oh shut up, you're not my father."

When she went to walk past him he grabbed her arm. "No, but I am your husband. Where the hell have you been and who with?"

"Out with friends. I have to do something for fun since you are such a boring person."

"You were supposed to take Christy to her doctor's appointment."

"Christy, Christy, that's all you ever talk about. She's a big girl and can go by herself, so screw the both of you."

"You know what Joyce? I no longer give a damn what you do and to whom. I'm so done with you and this marriage. You aren't fit to be a wife much less a mother. I give up, it's over between us and better we part ways now."

This sobered her up, she wasn't about to lose her meal ticket until she found someone better, one who was filthy rich. "Cole, I'm sorry, it won't happen again. Give me one more chance to change." She went over to him and tried to put her arms around his neck but he pushed them away.

"How can I trust you after everything?"

"Just wait, I'll prove it to you. We could start by going to bed and having sex. It's been so long since we've been intimate."

There was a time he would have jumped at the chance to have sex with her, but now he couldn't bear the thought of touching her. "Are you kidding me right now? It's been over two years and sex isn't going to make me forget the way you treated me for the last few years."

She lowered her head, pretending to feel bad. "I know, but we could start over again and take things slow. When you're ready to sleep with me I promise you won't regret it. We're having a baby so we should try and make it work."

"Will you start being nicer to Christy and take interest in the baby?"

"Yes, I give you my word."

"Just so you know she has made up her mind to find an apartment right away. I will expect you to come to all the appointments with us."

"I will. It's late and I'm tired so I'm going to bed."

"Joyce, tell me the truth, are you cheating on me and were you with a man tonight?" He wondered if she would tell him the truth, he doubted she would.

"No, of course not, night, Cole."

The next day Christy was sitting outside on the patio reading when Joyce came out, wearing dark sunglasses.

"I want to apologize for not being here to take you to the doctor for your checkup. I've been going through some stuff and my head wasn't in the right place. Can you ever forgive me and can we start over?"

She couldn't see Joyce's eyes to tell if she was being sincere or not so she decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. "Yes, I would like that."

"I'm so happy to hear you say that. Now, my husband said you are wanting to move out. I want you to stay here with us. It would make Cole happy knowing you are close by and better able to take care of you. So what do you say?"

"I'm not sure me being here is a good ideal."

"Just try it for a few weeks and if you still want to leave we'll help you find a nice place and will take care of all the costs such as first and last month's rent."

"I'll think about it."

Joyce reached over and patted her on the hand. "Wonderful, let me know when you've decided. I'll leave so that you can finish your book and if you need anything don't be afraid to come to me. I think there's a chance we could become good friends." Walking away and with her back to Christy, she smirked and rolled her eyes. A plan was forming in the back of her mind and in order for it to work, she had to stay living with them.

Christy wasn't sure what to think of Joyce, she sounded sincere but you could never tell with her. When it was time for her scan both Cole and Joyce went with her.

He was excited when the sex of the baby was revealed, it was a boy. Even though Joyce smiled her body was stiff, and she didn't seem excited at all. Since he had to go back to work Joyce drove them home.

Over the next two weeks Christy noticed a slight change in Joyce, she was friendlier to a point when she was home. Though she and Cole were still distant from each other the fighting had stopped. But all of that was about to change, Joyce became restless and drank more during the day.

This one day she found Joyce passed out on the stairs heading upstairs and managed to get her up. "Mrs. Mason, let's get you to your room." Once they were upstairs she didn't know which room. "Which bedroom is yours and Cole's?"

Joyce giggled, staggering her words. "You know which room is Cole's, mine is the one further down the hall," she said, pointing.

Christy was shocked to learn that they weren't sharing the same bedroom. Getting her inside she helped Joyce get undressed and into bed. "Can I get you anything?"

"Oh, some water and aspirins for my pounding headache. Christy, don't tell my husband that I'm drunk when he comes home. He's such an old fuddy-duddy when it comes to drinking through the day."

Later that evening when he returned home from work he asked where Joyce was.

"She's upstairs, sleeping."

"Sleeping, this early?"

She hated lying to him but didn't want to cause trouble between him and Joyce. "She had a headache and needed to lay down. "Well, part of it was the truth, she just left out the part where she was stinking drunk.

Since June had a couple of days off Christy took it upon herself to cook their dinner. She made his favourite, pot roast with small roasted potatoes with glazed carrots.

"This is so delicious, too bad Joyce is missing out on it. So how did your day go, did anything interesting happen today?"

"No, just took it easy."

"How about the morning sickness?"

"I got lucky today, no morning sickness, hopefully, it has passed."

"Joyce was telling me that she has convinced you to stay living here. I'm really glad that you've agreed to stay on.

"I said I would wait and see how things go."

"Is she being nicer towards you?"

"Yes, the last few days have been good, and she even took me shopping to get some maternity clothes. I'm afraid she used your credit card to pay for them. I tried to tell her I could pay for them but she insisted. I'll pay you back."

"No, I don't want you to and I'm glad she took you." Now hearing that Joyce took her shopping was quite the surprise, even though she used his money to do it. But she was his wife and had use of his card.

For the next couple of days, Cole was busy with work, leaving her and Joyce alone. That was when things started going sour. When June wasn't around Christy became Joyce's maid in a sense.

"Christy, I'm exhausted from my lunch and with the girls so would you mind going upstairs and running me a nice warm bubble bath?"

"Wait, you want me to run you a bath?"

"Thank you dear, I'll be up in a moment," she said and walked out of the living room.

Christy was speechless, she just stood there watching as Joyce left the room. She did go upstairs and filled the tub up and added the bubbles. Moments later Joyce walked in wearing a robe and removed it and got into the tub.

"Do me another favor darling, pour me a glass of champagne and light the candles."

Christy went into the other room and seeing a bottle of champagne she poured some into the glass. Picking up the lighter that was on the table she went back into the bathroom, handed Joyce the glass and then lit the candles.

"Enjoy your bath, Mrs. Mason."

"I will go, there's nothing else so you can leave now."

She felt the anger building inside her as she walked out, closing the door behind her. She still couldn't believe that Joyce had asked her to do those things for her when she was more than capable of doing it herself. But she was going to let it go since this was the first time.

A few days later June had come down with a bad cold and was going to be bedridden for a while. Christy was resting when Joyce walked into her bedroom with a basket full of dirty clothes.

"Be a dear and wash these for me, make sure to wash the delicates by hand."

"Mrs. Mason, I'm not feeling very good so I think I should just stay in bed for a while."

"Oh nonsense, you'll feel better if you get up and do something. I'm sure doing the laundry is not going to hurt you and after all I did spend all that money on your new maternity wear." Dropping the laundry basket on the bed she walked out without saying another word.

After the laundry was finished and folded Christy took it up to Joyce's bedroom. The woman was nowhere to be found but there were empty wine bottles laying on the table. Not giving it another thought she started picking them up to throw into the trash. By this time she was exhausted and went to lay down.

When Cole got home his wife had left a note saying she was going out with her girlfriends. He went into the kitchen expecting to see Christy making dinner even though he had told her on many occasions she didn't have to. When she wasn't there he became concerned and went and knocked on her bedroom door.

Christy was awakened by the knock and she sat up in bed. "Come in," she said thinking it might be Joyce.

Cole walked in and when he saw how pale she looked he went over and sat on the bed. "You don't look too good so I better check your blood pressure." When he was done he shook his head. "I don't understand, it's been normal for such a long time but now it's a little high so you better take it easy for a while."

"I'm sorry I fell asleep and I haven't even made dinner yet."

His hand reached out and touched her cheek. "I don't want you making any dinner, you are here to take it easy and to rest. Joyce is not here so I'll order dinner for the two of us."

She felt the heat from his hand on her cheek, putting her hand over the top of his she moved it from her cheek. "Thank you, that would be nice."

He didn't even try to stop his hand from going on her, he loved how soft her skin was. But once again he realized he crossed the line by doing it and even though he was sad that she removed it he was also glad.

He decided to treat her to Pizza, something he knew she liked but hadn't had in quite some time. During dinner she asked him about his day and he told her of a young boy who he had operated on and was so happy that the surgery was a success.

When he asked her how her day was she once again decided not to tell him what Joyce had her doing. She really didn't mind helping out around the house, but today when she was not feeling well she felt very resentful towards Joyce.

Over the next couple of weeks Joyce was getting her to do more and more chores. Christy was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed and when she went out to lunch with Gina she told her what was going on.

"That damn woman is turning you into a maid. You have gone to tell Cole what is going on when he's not around."

"I can't, it will only cause trouble between them. I haven't heard them argue in a long time and I don't want to be the reason for them to start fighting again. Next time Mrs. Mason ask me to do something I'll have a talk with her."

"You better, and I still think you should tell him what's going on. Abe told me that your blood pressure is up again. You have got to take it easy and that woman is just stressing you out. Maybe I should have a talk with that witch."

"Gina, don't do that. I'm a big girl and I can speak up for myself. I'm sure that once I explain to her how I'm feeling she'll understand and stop asking me to do things. Now you promised to split a banana split with me."

Gina couldn't help smiling, she knew how much Christy loved her banana splits because every time they were together she always had one.

The following day when Joyce asked her to clean out her bedroom closet she decided it was time to put her foot down and say no. But things did not go the way she was hoping for. Things got a whole lot worse. Suddenly Joyce was no longer nice and ordered her to do whatever was asked of her. With tears stinging her eyes she cleaned out the closet and then she had another chore to do.