Hugz n Kisses

But for the love that Lynn Connor had for the beast now, towering before her, venom spewing from his lips, screaming at the top of his lungs, she would gladly die.

There were only three things Lynn held dear, her sweet one year old daughter Tamara, Kevin Best, and now there was another child, the one she shielded protectively with her arm, as Kevin vowed to kick the child out of her.

As she begged him with her eyes, begged him to spare their unborn child, she knew instinctively that this was the end. If he didn’t kill her, he would surely walk out of her life.

Kevin grabbed her by the collar of her cheap, low-cut, pink blouse.

‘You get rid, do you hear me?! If I so much as hear a peep out there about you and that, I’ll kill you both.’

Saved by the sound of police sirens blaring outside, Kevin composed himself, smoothing down his hair, wiping the saliva from his lips and chin. He took a peek behind the nets. Police stepping out of a meat wagon and kicking the door off a house across the street.

Kevin breathed a short, sharp, sigh of relief and again turned to Lynn’s helpless frame cowering in the corner of the tatty little kitchen.

‘Please Kevin, we can work this out.’ Lynn, a little braver, raised onto her knees begging at his feet.

Kevin pulled his feet away and crouched down to Lynn’s eye level.

‘We? There ain’t no we. I’m a married man, you’re a married woman. I’ve got a daughter. I live up the road on a nice quiet street with decent respectable people around me. Decent life, I’ve got. You belong here, in this shit hole, with the scum of the earth. You’re a whore. You deserves to live in squalor.’

He spat in her face before snatching up his keys from the floor and stalked out of the flat, out of her life for good.

Lynn frozen to the spot, her mouth open but no sound. Tears falling but the wailing amiss as if the sound had been turned down. She gripped her belly for dear life. She rocked back on her feet and sat down heavily, gasping for breath.

Richard Connor gripped the wheel of his beaten up VW Golf, wishing he could hover above the traffic and fly to the hospital. What was wrong? Had she miscarried? The nurse who’d called him at work said she couldn’t go into details. Just stressed that he should get there at his earliest convenience. Convenience? What the hell was convenient about it. Richard played the conversation over in his mind. Trying to read between the lines.

Pushing his worst fears right to the back of all the questions, thoughts and premonitions. There was probably a very simple reason, maybe the baby had come early. That was OK surely. Babies are born premature every single day. No big deal.

Richard’s eyes focused on the red light, bore into them, willing them to turn to green.

‘Thank you, thank you God.’ He truly believed, in that moment, God had heard his plea and that God was on his side. He only hoped that God would stick by him for at least another ten minutes or so, till he got to the hospital at least. He drove closely behind the car in front, for fear of the lights changing again.

It was the waiting he couldn’t stand, if he could just get there, then he knew that all his worrying and wondering would be resolved, answered and he could go back to being the calm, laid back individual he was used to being. All this stress and worry would do his heart no good. That’s what the doctors had

told him in their neither here nor there tone.

As he pulled into the car park and found a spot right next to the entrance, he again gave credit to God for being there in his hour of need. As he raced through the hospital corridor towards the maternity ward, an overwhelming sense of foreboding took over.

Something didn’t feel right. Choosing not to dwell on that feeling of dread he arrived at Lynn’s bedside with hope in his eyes and love in his heart.

So his little soldier had arrived early, so he had been called out from work and would loose a days pay, so he had nearly shit himself on the way to the hospital. So Lynn had a split lip and looked like she’d been beaten up. All Richard could see in that moment was his son, all he could hear was his sons tiny breaths, all he could feel was love.

Richard cradled his son in his arms and studied every single detail. His life was complete, a son, a daughter, a wife, what more could a man ask for.