The Reunion — Part 2

CHAPTER 3 — FATHERHOOD

He thanked his lucky stars that the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was only a ten minute drive away. Zac drove as fast as he could get away with along Kidbrooke Park Road, listening to increasingly vociferous groans of pain emanating from the front passenger seat. He suddenly wished he’d listened more carefully to the emergency childbirth lecturer rambling on during a First Aid course he’d taken at Selfridges, but at the time fatherhood had seemed somewhat remote to him, if not downright unattainable.

The traffic lights were showing amber and then red as Zac approached. He contemplated speeding up, considering that he could probably execute a perfect right hand turn before the traffic started to move along the Shooters Hill Road, but then thought better of it. He glanced nervously at Sonia.

“How’re you doing?”

“It bloody well hurts.” Sonia groaned. “I’ve been having pains all day. Where have you been? I tried to call you twice.”

“Sorry; I was with Marc.” Zac hoped the lie sounded convincing as he slipped the car into first gear when the lights changed to green. “We had to talk over some details for the show.”

“Hurry.” Sonia’s face grimaced with another contraction. “These are definitely not Braxton-Hicks’.”

***

The only place to park was in a 20 minute drop-off zone. Zac found a wheelchair in the hospital’s foyer and ran back with it to Sonia, whom he could see was doubled over in…