― Avis Corea

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May 3rd 1996; 7:23pm

Amy Hunter groaned as another round of pain shot through her bones. She gripped on to the arm of the sofa and let out a blood-curdling scream that seemed to echo throughout the house.

Why hadn't anyone warned her how excruciating this could be? All the television series and movies she had watched always made it seem so stress-free and painless.

This? The constant throbbing she felt in her back and her waist? The relentless head-b.u.mping of the child inside her womb as if desperate to come out! Truth be told, she felt just as desperate as the infant.

This wasn't easy or problem-free!

What had she gotten herself into?

She took in deep breaths as she had seen many times on TV and arched her back, as she waited for her husband to get a move on. If he thought he was getting another kid after this one, he had another think coming.

"Jeremy!" she roared, glancing up the stairs that her husband had disappeared "Hurry up!"

Jeremy Hunter ran aimlessly around their master bedroom, chucking items of clothing he a.s.sumed his wife would need in the hospital into a duffel bag; and things he presumed the baby would need which his wife had bought earlier in the week.

Just as he picked up a gla.s.s bottle, his wife let out a shriek from the lobby downstairs startling him and in response, he dropped the bottle with a start, causing it to crash onto the floor and shatter into tiny pieces.

"s.h.i.+t," he muttered, deciding to leave the cleanup to the maid, Rita.

Stepping around the pieces, he picked up the bag he'd packed and raced down the stairs to meet his wife.

"Rita," he called as he threw the duffel bag into the back seat of their BMW "Gla.s.s broke upstairs! Take care of it."

He ran back into the house and putting an arm around his wife's lower back, helped her off the couch.

She whimpered and held tightly onto him, taking small shuffling steps out the door and towards the car.

How was he supposed to know that having a baby was so…?

He'd had dreams of a more peaceful labor and presumed it to be a peaceful process … nothing had prepared him for what was happening at the moment: his wife panting loudly and letting out random moans and screams.

How should he have known that labor would come so suddenly?

He had never been one for preparing for important situations early enough, so this had all come as quite a shock to him.

Plus the baby was two weeks early!

The lives of his wife and the unborn child were dependent on him and oh how he begged whoever was listening that he would not screw this up too.

Rita had expected today to turn out like this.

The Hunters had never been famous for planning ahead and always ended up taking care of things at the last minute.

Hearing Mr. Hunter yell a command, Rita raced up the stairs with a sweeping brush.

As she cleaned up the gla.s.s that had shattered on the floor, she looked around the room in dismay at the mess Mr. Hunter had made and sighed, shaking her head slightly.

She got rid of the gla.s.s bits and started in the room, rearranging items Mr. Hunter had mindlessly thrown around in his anxiety.

Jeremy helped his wife into the pa.s.senger seat and raced into the house to grab the car keys.

"We're off Rita," he called as he put on his coat.

The rain had started falling in a drizzle outside and the night was getting colder by the minute, so he grabbed his wife's scarf and gloves.

He ran back to the car and getting into the driver's side, started the engine, and opened the garage door.

Leaving the curb behind, he sped down the street just as his wife let out another scream.

"Please," he muttered silently to himself as he drove, glancing at his wife whenever he heard her whimpering and screams.

"Please let it all turn out okay."