It was a hot, muggy day in July. Elizabeth was struggling to wash the dishes while simultaneously fanning herself with an old church bulletin. All the windows in the house were open, yet the small electric fan in the kitchen did little to combat the oppressive heat. She was now entering her ninth month of pregnancy, and the doctor had told her that her baby could come 'any day now.' She felt as big as a house and couldn't wait to have the whole thing over with.

Suddenly she heard whimpering coming from outside the door and went to investigate. To her surprise, she saw a filthy and very pregnant cocker spaniel standing there. The dog looked at her and whimpered. "Paul! Come quick!" she called to her husband, who was relaxing in the living room. She heard his footsteps and then he appeared.

"She looks like she's starving," Elizabeth said. "Don't we have anything we could feed her?"

"Come here, girl." Paul whistled, and the dog walked up to him. He stroked her fur, and she nuzzled his hand with her nose. "Let's see what we can find."

He got some scraps that had been left over from dinner, put them into a bowl, and set the bowl on the floor. The dog practically inhaled it in almost no time at all.

"Poor little thing!" Elizabeth cried. "She must have been starving!"

"Almost ready to deliver as well," Paul added, feeling the dog's swollen abdomen. Searching for something else to feed her, he came up empty-handed, so he poured some milk into a bowl and set it on the floor. The dog drank every drop, and then Paul picked her up and carried her into the bathroom.

A few minutes later, the dog walked back into the kitchen, where she shook herself mightily. "I'll bet that feels a lot better, doesn't it, girl?" asked Paul. The dog licked his hand gratefully.

Elizabeth found a large basket and lined it with an old sheet for the dog to sleep in, and she and Paul went to bed. Several hours later, they heard the dog whimpering. Paul went to check on her. "She's in labor," he told his wife.

They both watched in awe as the first puppy slid out. It was wet and totally limp. Holding a towel, Paul picked it up and rubbed it vigorously, and it began to whimper. "It's a girl," Paul announced.

The next two puppies were both boys, and the fourth puppy never moved, no matter how hard Paul rubbed it with the towel. "It's dead." His voice quivered as he laid the tiny corpse aside. Elizabeth felt goosebumps break out all over her body as a distant traumatic memory returned to her. Look upon the face of death...never feel your baby's breath...

Another healthy boy followed, then another healthy girl, then a partially decomposed fetus, which had obviously died inside its mother awhile back. Elizabeth shuddered. Paul helped the surviving puppies to find their mother's teats, then wrapped the two dead ones in an old sheet and took it outside. An hour or so later, he stumbled back into the house and fell asleep beside his dozing wife.

It was near dawn when Elizabeth sat up in bed with a loud cry. "Hey! What is it?" Paul's voice was soft with concern as he embraced her.

"I just had a really bad dream." Her voice shook with emotion.

"Because of the dead puppies?" asked Paul.

Elizabeth nodded. "Right after John Curtis was born, a crazy woman named Cassie kidnapped him. When we found them, she told us that he'd been supposed to die, and since he didn't, it was a sign that he was supposed to take the place of her baby. She'd had a miscarriage right before John Curtis was born."

"Wow, it was sure a good thing that you found him alive and safe!"

"I don't think she would have hurt him," Elizabeth replied. "Later on, I talked to Mary Ellen about it. She said that after Cassie's miscarriage, she'd started following her around and repeating this scary sentence. 'Look upon the face of death, never feel your baby's breath.' Mary Ellen had been the one to take care of her after her miscarriage, so she'd seen the...the dead baby. Mary Ellen was so scared, and now...I'm scared, too."

"Oh, Lizzie." Paul held his wife and comforted her. "That's just an old saying. There's no truth to it at all. Everything's going to be just fine."


They named the dog Heidi and found good homes for all the surviving puppies. One afternoon Elizabeth went into a sudden cleaning frenzy. She swept the floor, scrubbed the walls, took down the curtains and laundered them, dusted all the furniture, cleaned the bathroom, scrubbed the stove until it shone, and even polished the silverware.

"What's the occasion?" Paul laughed when he got home.

"I don't know." Elizabeth was puzzled herself. "The urge just came over me all of a sudden."

That night, it occurred to her that she hadn't felt the baby move for several hours. Normally it was most active at night, yet tonight, it seemed strangely still. Unwilling to disturb Paul's sleep, she lay awake worried for hours until at last, toward dawn, she drifted into a dreamless sleep.

She almost overslept the following morning, and Paul had to shake her awake. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"It's all right." He smiled. "Did you sleep well last night?"

"Yes," she lied. She felt reluctant to say good-bye to him as he left for work that day.

After lunch, she was awakened by an intense contraction, and by the time Paul got home from work, she was in active labor. "I'm fetching the doctor right away!" he exclaimed. After what seemed to Elizabeth like forever, he finally returned with Olivia.

"The doctor wasn't there," he told his wife. "He left word that he's doing an emergency appendectomy. There wasn't time to look for anyone else."

Elizabeth, in tremendous pain, felt a sharp stab of panic. "Everything's going to be all right." Olivia sat beside her daughter and stroked her damp hair comfortingly. "Paul and I will manage just fine."

It was close to midnight when Elizabeth finally felt the urge to push. Her face reddened as she bore down with all her might, time after time. "You're doing fine, sweetheart," Olivia told her. "One more big push."

Elizabeth bore down one more time. She felt a burning sensation, followed by a release.

All was quiet for just a minute, and then she heard the wail of a healthy newborn.