Now dressed in something more to his liking (a flower-print sundress), Eric went about his house-husband duties, until he heard some kind of crash that nearly gave him a heart-attack. He followed the noise to the bedroom he and his wife Laura had been preparing for their future baby. He found Laura on the floor, looking irritated.
"What happened?" Eric asked, nearly hysterical.
"It's okay, babe. I'm fine. I was just ..." Laura began.
"You were in here trying to finish the room again, weren't you? I told you that I'd take care of it. You shouldn't be in here in your condition."
"Eric, I'm pregnant. I'm not dying. And you know how much I like to be the one to do projects around the house. It's hard for me to take a backseat to ... well, anyone. Especially you," Laura said.
"Yeah, I know," Eric said, with a sigh. After all, traditionally, it was the woman who took care of things like this. But Eric wasn't an invalid. He could help out. Plus, Laura was pregnant. She may have not been dying, but she really should have been more careful. She was carrying their future baby, after all. "Listen, how about we finish the room together from now on, okay?" Eric suggested, holding out a hand to help lift his wife up off the floor. She took his hand and he helped her up, both grunting.
"Sure, hon," she said. "Listen, I'm sorry I'm such a pain. I know it's been strange me being at home all this time, instead of working. But after the baby is born, my maternity leave will be over and you'll have the house all to yourself again ... well, you and the baby. But I'm sure you're looking forward to that," she said. Frankly, Laura wasn't really all that enthusiastic about taking care of their baby's needs, like most women. But men ... it was like they were wired for this sort of thing.
"Oh, of course," Eric said, smiling, his eyes twinkling a bit. He couldn't wait to finally meet his future baby and take care of him (or her). He couldn't wait to be a father.
------
Angel was busy doing housework when he found something alarming in the bathroom. He was emptying out the trash can in there when something odd caught his attention - a pregnancy test. Picking it up, he saw that the result was a confirmation of pregnancy. Hannah was pregnant? Why didn't she say something about this to him? Was that why she was in such a rush? Was she even really late to work? Angel always wanted to be a father, but knew that Hannah didn't quite feel the same way about it. He now feared that she might do something awful, like get an abortion. This sort of thing happened a lot. After all, it was usually the man who wanted to keep the baby. But how much of a say did men actually have in that matter? It was, after all, the woman who was having the baby, not the man.
Fearing the worst, Angel grabbed his phone and called his wife at work, but there was no answer. Was she purposely ignoring him?
------
Earlier ...
"Hello, Kelly. I'm Dr. Trevor Rains," said a handsome man in his late 30's, wearing a white lab coat, having a stethoscope around his neck. As he entered the hospital room, he was followed by a 30-something woman in blue nurse's scrubs. "This is Nurse Mary Blake. We'll be delivering your baby this morning."
Kelly nodded. She was already having contractions, so she was dealing with a lot of pain at the moment.
"Will your husband be joining you?" the doctor asked.
"I'm not married. And the father isn't around. The moment I told him I was pregnant, the bastard skipped town," she said.
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that," he said, as he made preparations for the birth. "So who brought you here?"
"Janet. A friend of mine."
"Well, it's good that you have friends that'll help you out," he said.
Yeah, but what she really wanted was Peter. They really loved each other, before he turned his back on her. The man had commitment issues, that was for sure. Shortly later, as she was doing her breathing exercises, she wished that Peter was there holding her hand. That he was the type of guy that would stick around and support their future baby instead of running away from it. Little did she know, her wish was about to come true, not that she had anything to do with it, or would even remember that she had even made that wish in the first place.
FLASH
Peter stood by the bed, holding Kelly's hand. Not that she really needed the support. She was, after all, a woman. And if a woman couldn't get through childbirth on her own, well, she wasn't much of a woman, ya know? Still, the gesture was appreciated. Peter and her weren't married, yet, but he supported their baby with all of his heart. But it was like that with most men. They tended to want to be fathers much more than women wanted to be mothers. She was just glad that he was around to take care of the baby after it was born.
"It's coming! Push!" Dr. Mary Blake yelled. Her assistant Nurse Trevor Rains, looking quite pretty with his long hair in a ponytail and light pink lipstick, monitored the medical equipment nearby.
A moment later, Peter was cradling the baby in his arms, cooing at the newborn. He then handed the baby to his wife, who was less enthusiastic, but not disinterested. After all, this was her baby. Her daughter, as it turned out. And she had her whole life ahead of her. Already, Kelly was envisioning what her daughter's life would be like - maybe becoming a football player like Kelly was back in high school, or maybe an astronaut, or maybe even president. Being female, her daughter had so many options in life.