First babies take a long time, they say. I was counting on that.

He built a fire in the grill pit beside our cabin, then came inside. He shoveled glowing coals from the woodstove into a steel bucket and placed them under our pickup to warm the engine oil. He watched for a while then turned and waded through the snow and the birch and the spruce to the neighbor’s house to use their telephone. The on-call midwife answered on the fifth ring and assured him there was plenty of time but since it was snowing heavily, we should start for town.

He soon returned. I was ready to go. He checked the truck, spread the fire out under the grill and slapped two large moose steaks onto the hot iron. “First, you need to eat,” he said.

A few hours later, I was a mother.