Page 37 of Prognosis Do Over

CHAPTER SIX

‘Daddy, Daddy,’ called Candy, rushing over to them as Will lowered Lou into a wheelchair. ‘Is Lou okay?’

‘I’m fine, sweetie,’said Lou, hearing the worry in Candy’s voice. She smiled at the child and squeezed her hand. She tried to project a calm, confident exterior, but inside she was thinking the worst. ‘The baby’s just decided to come a little early.’

‘She’ll be fine,’ agreed Lydia, also joining them, and giving Candy a reassuring smile. ‘Get her to Maternity,’ she said to Will over the top of Lou’s head. ‘Now.’

Will heard the underlying urgency in Lydia’s otherwise light tone. ‘Can you...?’ he asked, nodding at his daughter.

She nodded. ‘Candy, sweetie, Daddy’s going to go with Lou. You want to come home with me and play with Rilla for a while?’

‘Sure,’ Candy said. ‘You will phone me straight away when the baby’s born, won’t you, Daddy? Can I come and visit you, Lou?’

‘Of course, sweetie,’ Lou said, gritting her teeth as the contractions came in wave upon relentless wave.

Lydia took Candy’s hand. ‘Good luck,’ she said, squeezing her best friend’s shoulder as she ushered Candy quickly away.

‘Go!’ Lou said urgently as soon as they’d left.

Will didn’t need to be told twice. ‘Are you having contractions?’ he asked as he strode along.

‘Yes.’

‘How far apart are they?’ he asked.

‘They aren’t,’ she said, gripping the arms of the chair for dear life, pushing down through her legs and feet to raise her bottom slightly off the chair. Her back felt on fire, and sitting was aggravating the pain. ‘They just keep coming. I’m not getting a break between them at all.’

Bloody hell.Will pushed faster.

‘Are you breathing?’ he asked, concerned about her white-knuckled grip.

‘Of course I am,’ she snapped. ‘I’d hardly be talking to you if I weren’t.’

Will ignored her testiness and stopped the chair at the lifts, pushing the up button several times.

Come on, damn it.

‘It’s going to be fine,’ he told her, as he pushed the button three more times.

‘It’s supposed to be six more weeks,’ she wailed. ‘It’ll be tiny, and its lungs won’t be developed enough.’

Will banged the button harder this time at her distress. ‘Nonsense —look at you. You’re huge. This baby is going to be a goliath. Anyway, it’s only six weeks,’ he dismissed firmly, pushing the button continuously now. ‘That hardly even registers as prem.’

Ordinarily the female inside her would have been insulted by his blunt summation of her size. But right now she couldn’t have cared less. ‘Sometimes the not so prem ones fare the worst,’ she said, biting her lip to stop the threatening tears.

Crying was not going to help Jan’s baby.

The lift arrived, and Will could have kissed the opening doors. ‘The baby’s gonna be fine,’ he said again.

The four other occupants in the lift stared open-mouthed as Will pushed Lou inside. They did look a sight. Will with his clown doctor hair, and Lou with hers half shorn, a near bald strip down the middle like a reverse mohawk, panting and puffing and clutching her tummy, her clothes soaked.

Still their expressions didn’t register. Lou didn’t even notice. Between the bite of contractions and worrying that the baby was too early, her brain was full. All that mattered was that the baby was okay. The baby that Jan and Martin had wanted so badly.

Her niece or nephew.

She’d been scared all along that she’d stuff this up, and now her worst nightmares were coming true.

Will burst through Maternity’s doors a couple of minutes later. ‘I need some help here,’ he called, as he pushed her down the corridor.

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