The baby lay on her side, her thumb firmly plugged in her tiny rosebud mouth. Her breathing was slow and rhythmic, although her eyelids fluttered from time to time. Erica knelt beside the cot, resting her forehead on the painted wooden side, exhaustion stroking her head with cool fingers.
It was hard to believe that the angelic child lying fast asleep amidst the pink fleecy blankets had been screaming for endless hours all evening. Only now, after what felt like an eternity of pacing the polished floorboards, had she finally fallen asleep in her arms.
Rubbing her heavy eyes, Erica carefully stood up, wincing as her knee cracked painfully. It was nearly four am and if she went to bed now, she might be lucky enough to catch a couple of hours sleep.
Silently she tiptoed out of the nursery and made her way back to their room. Chris was lying on his stomach, snoring gently and managing to steal most of the duvet. For a moment she stood staring at him, resentment threatening to smother her.
Every night it was the same. Erica was the one left to try and calm the fractious baby as she screamed herself blue with colic. Chris's excuse for leaving her to it was that he needed his sleep.
"I have to go to work every day!" he had yelled at her when she had finally snapped the night before last.
"I'm not asking you to stay up all night -- just taking Charlotte out for an hour and giving me a break would be helpful."
Erica had felt like screaming with frustration by then. But she knew it was pointless -- Chris just didn't understand how hard it was dealing with a crying baby, day in and day out. Five months of no sleep and constant crying was killing her slowly.
Most days she was a zombie. She functioned, but only on a superficial level. Going out was impossible; Charlotte very rarely settled for any length of time and pushing a screaming baby round the shops just prompted busybody's to ask her if the baby was hungry.
The health visitor had promised her Charlotte would settle down once she had begun weaning her. Well that was one month ago and she was still waiting for the crying to abate. The baby was putting on weight, but she still cried all the time.
Erica dropped her dressing gown on the carpet and climbed into bed, yanking some of the duvet back from Chris. He grunted slightly, but he didn't wake up. Bloody typical, she thought venomously. It seemed that most nights an earthquake could have shook them to pieces and still he would have slept through the commotion.
She lay in the half-light, desperate for sleep, but unable to switch off. Too many jumbled thoughts ran round her head in a confusing maelstrom. She wondered whether she would have agreed to have a baby had she known how much her life would change.
Having a child was meant to bring them together. Instead it was slowly driving them apart. Some days they barely exchanged two words at all. As for sex, well that was pretty much non-existent. Erica was always too tired and Chris had given up trying.
As far as she was concerned, if she managed to snatch some time in bed when Charlotte was asleep, she wanted to sleep too. Making love was not exactly a priority in her daily schedule.
Unsurprisingly Chris had disagreed with her on this. They had almost come to blows one night when she finally fell into bed, exhausted after trying unsuccessfully to encourage Charlotte to sleep.
She had left the baby sobbing fitfully in her cot. For hours she had been rocking and trying to comfort her, with no discernable effect whatsoever. The baby had become increasingly irate; she didn't want feeding, she was neither too hot, nor too cold. She just wanted to cry.
In the end Erica had placed her in her cot after making sure she was warm enough and her nappy was clean. She left her to cry. It seemed cruel, but she was at the end of her tether. She could still hear her screaming loudly from their bedroom, but the crying was slightly muted. It did not stop the wrenching feeling in her gut however.
When she crawled into bed, all she wanted to do was to sleep. As soon as she felt Chris snuggle up behind her, his hard cock pressing insistently into her back, she knew exactly what was coming.
"I'm horny..." the words spoken softly in her ear made feel like crying. His hand stroked her breasts through the cotton nightdress she wore and with a discernable sigh, she moved out of reach.
"Not now -- I'm shattered. I need to sleep, not fuck," she said, struggling to control her temper.
"When WOULD be a good time for you?" Chris snapped icily, snatching his hand away. "It seems to me there is never a good time these days."
"Oh just drop it, Chris!"
Erica turned her back on him, curling her body into a tight ball, the tension knotting her shoulders and pushing any chance of sleep she might have had into the realms of distant memory.
Chris retreated back to his side of the bed, turning his back on her too. The area of mattress between them turned into Siberia in the space of a few seconds. Eventually Erica heard Chris begin to snore. With a careful movement she turned onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
From the nursery Charlotte was still sobbing fitfully. The plaintive sound echoed down the hallway and tugged at Erica's heartstrings. She knew the baby was fine -- she had been fed and changed. It still didn't stop her feeling like a useless mother.
She turned back on her side and closed her eyes. Tears trickled slowly down her cheek, making the pillow wet. Thoughts of how her life used to be flooded her mind with rose-tinted memories. As much as she adored the baby, she missed her job and her freedom. It felt like she was no longer a person; she was just a mother and a drone.
What she missed most of all was her husband. They had grown so far apart it felt like they lived on different planets some days. Erica wondered just how long their relationship could survive this kind of pressure. She also wondered how long she would continue to care...
* * *
Chris awoke when the alarm went off. Quickly he reached out and turned it off, his eyes stinging in the light from the open curtains. Damn, he thought crossly, he should have pulled them shut last night. The early morning sun was lovely, but slap bang in his eyes first thing it was not so bloody lovely.
He turned over and realised to his surprise that Erica was lying fast asleep beside him. Normally she was up long before him as the baby tended to be nocturnal. In fact Charlotte just didn't sleep full stop, he reminded himself wryly.
His cock was hard and for a blissful second he debated waking Erica up for some fun. Then he remembered the words of last night and thought better of it. No doubt she would still be pissed at him. It felt like she was permanently pissed at him these days.
God knew he did his best -- but at the end of the day, what COULD he do? She had decided to breast feed so he was unable to help. She watched him like a hawk every time he tried to change a nappy or bath the baby. It was like she didn't trust him to do anything right.
