Belle went into labor the afternoon of the second day after that night they sat together in the kitchen.
She'd had a low, persistent backache all morning, the kind that eerily reminded her of that unfortunate day she was running for her life. By late afternoon, a streak of blood-tinged mucus appeared, a bloody show. Her stomach turned. It was nature's quiet warning, a sign that labor might be drawing near.
By lunchtime, she had finally insisted on cooking this time, bored with having nothing to do. While she was in the kitchen, her first two distinguishable contractions came, twenty minutes apart
The second hit hard enough to perch her on the edge of a chair, where she sat trying to catch her breath for nearly a full minute. When it passed, she braced her back, rose awkwardly, and waddled into the front room to look for her husband.
