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Some minutes later she sluht and she rong The test showed a positive The door opened slowly and she looked wordlessly up at her friend and burst into floods of tears
‘Remember hoe used to say that the babies we had would be precious gifts?’ Pixie breathed as she hugged her sobbing friend ‘Well, this baby is a gift and ill e We don’t need a man to survive’
‘I can’t even knit!’ Holly wailed, unable to concentrate, unable to think beyond the sheer ies she was about to face
‘That’s OK You won’t have time to knit,’ her friend told her, deadpan
Holly was re when she and Pixie had talked innocently about their ideal of motherhood Both of thelectful mothers They had sworn that they would love and protect their own babies no matter what
And the vague circuested by ‘no matter what’ had actually happened now, Holly reflected heavily, her sense of regret at that truth all-enco the perfect world as she had dreamt Her baby was unplanned, however, but not unwanted She would love her child, fight to keep him or her safe and if she had to do it alone, and it looked as though she would, she would e
‘If only Vito had phoned…’ The lament escaped Holly’s lips before she could bite it back and she flushed in embarrassment
‘He’s long gone In fact, the ht-et about the father of your child For all you know he could be a married man’
‘No!’ Holly broke in, aghast at that suggestion
‘Well, as Vito doing spending Christmas alone out in the irlfriend threw hio?’
‘Don’t make me feel worse than I already do,’ Holly pleaded ‘You’re such a pessiain doesn’t make him a bad person’
‘He got you drunk and somehow persuaded you into bed Don’t expect s about him He was a user’
‘I wasn’t drunk’
‘Let’s not rehash it again’ Her flathtful ‘Let’s see if we can trace him online’
And while Pixie did internet searches on several potential spellings of Vito’s surna, Holly sat on the sofa hugging her still-flat sto about the future She had already secretly carried out all those searches weeks earlier on Vito and was too proud to admit to the fact, even to her friend