January 1884

Supper was burning. Prim had only left it for a few minutes in order to put the clean laundry away, but she must have stoked the fire in the cookstove too high again because the stew was ruined. Tears of frustration leaked from her eyes as she transferred what was left of it to a clean pot. She hoped she could keep it from burning again if she stirred it constantly until the stove cooled down. So much for the laundry.

There was a knock at the door.

"Mother!" Prim called, "Could you get that?"

No response. Prim guessed she was either sleeping or staring at the ceiling. That was about all she'd done since Prim's father died.

"Mother!" she called again.

Nothing.

Prim moved the stew to the very back of the cookstove and hoped it would be alright for a few minutes while she got the door. There was a small peep hole at eye level. Well, it was at adult eye level, and Prim could just reach it if she stood on tip-toe. On the front step of their small house stood Rory Hawthorne and a heavily pregnant woman Prim didn't recognize. Rory was about her age, but two grades behind her in school. Not that she'd been to school recently.

Prim breathed a sigh of relief that it was someone she knew, and opened the door.

"Hello Prim," said Rory hesitantly, "I'm sorry to disturb you, but they told me your mother is a midwife?"

"Yes, she is but—"

"Good. Child come soon," said the woman. She had a strong accent. She looked like Rory, and he had mentioned at school that his family was from somewhere in Europe. Greece maybe? Or Italy. A lot of her classmates were immigrants.

The woman continued, "I need—" she gasped in pain.

Prim helped the woman stay calm until the pain abated, then ushered them inside.

"My mother is unwell," Prim explained. Could you go to Doctor Heav—"

"—No," Rory cut her off abruptly. He looked sympathetically the woman. "That—that would not be good."

"O-kay," said Prim. There was a story there but now was not the time, "Then we'll just have to manage the best we can." She turned to the woman, "My name is Prim. What's yours?"

"Hazelle," the woman replied.

"How long has this been going on? Has your water broken?" Prim asked, feigning confidence.

The woman looked confused, but Rory spoke to her in another language. Prim thought it sounded like Greek, but she wasn't sure. Hazelle replied in the same language and Rory translated, "My mother says the pains started in earnest about two hours ago. Her water hasn't broken yet."

"Well you did the right thing to come here. I've done this a few times before and I'll do my best," said Prim, squaring her shoulders. Technically she'd never done this on her own, but she needed to be confident in order to reassure Hazelle.

Rory repeated this in Hazelle's language, but Prim's offer of help only seemed to make her more agitated. She started to say something, but stopped mid-sentence and cried out in pain.

"Hazelle, breathe with me," Prim said, trying to imitate the tone her mother used to encourage her patients, but the woman was clearly panicking. Eventually the pain subsided and Hazelle started speaking rapidly to her son.

Rory told Prim, "She says something doesn't feel right. This is her fourth baby and it doesn't feel like the others."

"Keep her calm," said Prim, "I'll go get my mother."

Prim tried, she really did, but her mother refused to get up, so Prim returned to her patient who was now screaming incoherently as her son tried his best to reassure her.

When the pain subsided, Prim told her firmly, "You need to get control of yourself. Your baby is depending on you stay calm so we can help it get here safely."

When Rory translated, a look of focused determination crossed Hazelle's face, and she nodded.

For about an hour, Prim did the best she could to reassure Hazelle through her labor pains. Rory proved to be a great helper, making sure his mother was comfortable, translating when needed, fetching towels and boiling water. He even kept the stew from burning again.

Katniss returned home from work. She took one look at what Prim was doing and marched into the back bedroom. She came out a few minutes later, literally dragging their mother behind her.

Prim wasn't sure if it was the familiar sight of a woman in need of help, or something Katniss had said, but Mother's face lost that hollow, haunted expression, at least for the time being, and she asked Prim for a report on the patient.

Prim told her mother everything she knew so far, including Hazelle's continuing assertion that something didn't feel right.

Then, Mother scrupulously cleaned her hands and said soothingly, "Hazelle you're doing wonderful. I need to examine you now, just do your best to ignore me and keep breathing how Prim tells you to breathe."

After the examination, Mother explained, "Your baby is face up. Most babies are born face down, so that's why it felt different this time. You're going to be alright. The birth will be long and painful, but you'll be alright."

As Rory translated, Hazelle cried with relief.

Prim was relieved to fall into her usual supporting role—fetching anything her mother needed and making the patient comfortable. After a few minutes, Katniss popped her head in. "Mother," she said, "could I borrow Prim for a few minutes?"

"Yes," Mother replied and bid Prim to go, telling her, "I'll call for you if anything changes."

Prim followed Katniss to their shared room. "Is it your back again? Should I get the liniment?" Prim asked. She was fairly certain her sister was running on sheer stubbornness, because Katniss simply didn't have the build for the mine work she was trying to do. Most sixteen-year-old girls didn't.

"No, I'm alright today," said Katniss. She sat down on the bed and patted a spot next to her, "Sit down. I wanted to ask you how you're doing."

This caught Prim off guard and she started to sob. Katniss put her arms around her let her cry. "You did good today, Prim," Katniss whispered, her voice catching. "We'll get through this. Somehow."

As Peeta carried Katniss to the cabin, she felt so frustratingly helpless. And guilty, because she could feel his uneven gait with every step and guessed it must be painful.

The cabin was small, but solidly built. With the colorful quilt upon the bed and a few pencil sketches adorning the walls, it felt rustic but cosy—permanent. Things were on shelves, not just kept in a rucksack by the door. There were curtains in the window. And... and a rifle hanging on the wall, with a pair of well-oiled work boots by the door. No, just one boot. But the faint scent of leather polish and gunpowder hung in the air, and, together with the coal smoke, reminded Katniss of home.

Her reverie was interrupted by Peeta asking, "Can we talk about what you said to Delly?"

"What?"

"Your 'brother.' I thought we agreed to tell my family the truth."

Oh. That. "I'd known her for just a few minutes and she did nothing to inspire my trust," Katniss said defensively. "Still hasn't. How do I know she won't go running to the law the second she finds out there's a wanted criminal in her house?"

"I trust Delly with my life!" Peeta insisted.

"Well forgive me if I don't trust her with mine," Katniss shot back.

This gave him pause. "Your life?" Peeta asked warily. "I—I thought you'd go to jail at the worst. Isn't the law more sympathetic to women?"

"Depends on the judge," said Katniss. "If I get caught by Thread, I'm as good as hung right then and there. The judge in Eagle County is not fond of mercy."

"Oh." Peeta silently pondered this new revelation. Then he asked, "Would—I mean—could I be—you know—hung—for—"

"No. If I get caught, I'll be sure to confess to lying to you. An innocent farmer beguiled by a foul temptress—you'll get off scot-free. And your family, well, they don't know the truth, so they should be fine."

Peeta considered this for a moment. Then he said, with a forced lightness in his voice, "We're going to have to work on your acting skills if you want people to believe you capable of beguiling anyone."

To be fair, he was right. Prim used to tease her about her tendency to scare all but the most tenacious young men away. Katniss hadn't cared. Love wasn't worth the risk of ending up like her mother.

Katniss pushed that thought to the back of her mind. She scowled and said, "I think you overestimate the intelligence of the Eagle County judge."

Peeta chuckled. Katniss had to admit she was growing accustomed to the sound.

Abernathy had warned Katniss that the journey would be taxing, and he was right. The day after she arrived, she barely left her bed. But she didn't have a high fever, and got progressively better each day, so there was no cause for concern. On the second day, she joined the family at the main house. Peeta's brother Rye carried Katniss there, further evidence that Peeta's leg was troubling him. Katniss found she disliked being beholden to Rye even more than she did Peeta, and resolved to get well enough to walk as soon as possible.

That morning was an intense session of questions and scheming. Rye and Delly clearly didn't trust Katniss, even without knowing the whole truth, but they were willing to help for now, if only for Peeta's sake. Rye pronounced himself the best liar in the family and made quick work of ironing out some holes in their story.

Meanwhile, Delly was in charge of Katniss' new wardrobe. A wardrobe that consisted of no pants, feminine underthings, including a corset—which Katniss had been avoiding for years, and a few new dresses. Delly had some plain white cotton on hand for nightgowns and underthings and several yards of yellow calico.

"Rye bought me this last year," Delly confessed to Katniss, "And bless him, he got a good price on it, but the color is all wrong for my complexion. I already have curtains and it's not right for a tablecloth, so I just kept it in the bottom of my sewing box, entirely unsure what to do with it. We'll still need to make a run into town for fabric for another dress, but this should get us started."

Delly did most of the sewing on her small hand crank machine. Katniss was grateful for this because she hadn't done much beyond mending in years. And her family had never owned a machine anyway. There was usually at woman in every mining town who had a sewing machine and took in extra sewing work. Katniss' mother taught her girls the basics of sewing, but she would usually pay or barter with another miner's wife to do their sewing work, so she had time for her midwifery. And Katniss and Johanna could usually find someone selling ready-made men's clothing when theirs wore out.

Katniss did the basting and hemming while Delly ran the machine. Peeta, surprisingly, had a real knack for buttonholes. Katniss had never had the patience for them, so she gladly accepted his help.

All the while, Sam played with buttons and scraps of fabric, and jabbered to anyone who would listen about 'the big choo-choo' and 'the cows that say moo.'

By the time Delly was ready to make a trip into town to buy more fabric and begin spreading the story, Katniss had a dress fit for the gossipy visitors who were sure to come.

Author's Note:

First: HUGE thanks to my beta, JennaGill, who is a wizard at catching grammar and continuity issues.

Can I talk about the sliding scale of drama vs realism here? Because I had a really interesting (at least to me) experience writing this chapter. There was an episode of Anne With An E in which Gilbert Blythe, sixteen year old farm boy, delivers a baby in the streets of some port city. And not just a regular birth, but a breech baby, the nightmare of doctors and midwives everywhere. Seriously. Modern doctors tend to opt for a c-section instead of trying to turn the baby or deliver it breech. There are things midwives can do to deliver a breech baby safely, but it's risky and requires special training. That AnnE episode drove me nuts because they turned the drama up to 11 at the expense of the realism of the story. They could have made their point and kept the realism by having Gilbert assist with a routine birth, because even if nothing goes wrong, assisting with a birth requires skill and presence of mind and it could have still been a character turning point for him.

So flash forward to like two weeks ago when I was writing this chapter. I'm ashamed to say that the first draft of the backstory vignette had Prim discover a foot in the birth canal after Hazelle's water broke. (aka a breech baby). Prim had a panic attack and the scene where Katniss drags her mother out of her room happened about the same. It was all very dramatic and after I thought about it for awhile, I was ashamed of myself. There is this tendency when writing to make the scene as interesting as possible, which often means going for the most rare and dangerous medical diagnosis.

Sometimes, though, when we up the drama, we miss the nuances of a more down-to-earth story, and we can loose the readers along the way.

So what do you think: Is this version of the backstory vignette too mundane/boring? Would you have preferred a more dramatic scene or is this enough for poor tired twelve year old Prim?