Parents to be...

"Get me a fag woman" snarled Sam. Jenny shrank even lower in her chair, pressing her back hard against the frame, even as she began searching her bag desperately for a cigarette. Even lying on a bed in a hospital gown Sam managed to instill fear in his woman.

"Sam, you can't smoke in here" I explained as I began to change Sam's bag of intravenous fluids."Yeah, just wanna hold it, no harm in me holding it" Sam said. Jenny had given up trying to look for a cigarette and now sat with arms crossed, resting on her distended belly. She looked to be nearing the end of her third trimester, which may have explained why she was in bare feet, even though they didn't look particularly swollen.

"Woman, where's me fag?" Sam demanded. Jenny shrugged her shoulders "Don't have any" she replied. Sam's face turned to me, looking me in the eye "What're they good for eh? Nothing, can't even get her man a fag" Sam said to me as if confiding to a friend. "Well go and get me some" Sam paused while Jenny sat there unmoving, "Now." Jenny got up off her seat, and wandered out into the rain, barefoot, without a coat, and pregnant.

Twenty minutes later Jenny returned, soaking wet, shivering, and handed her husband a pack of cigarettes which he promptly opened and began to light up. I promptly made him put it out. With much cursing and threatening he responded by making Jenny carry his bag of IV fluids while he stood outside the main door puffing away.

Sam was discharged later that day, his wife in tow, barefoot, wet, pregnant, and carrying Sam's bags.