She went into labor on a Thursday.
Of course she did. Hana had predicted Wednesday — statistically midweek makes sense — and Saki had said the due date was Saturday and therefore Thursday was within the expected window, and Yoru had said labor arrived on its own schedule and not to plan for it, and all three of them had been approximately right in their various ways, which was consistent with their established patterns.
It started quietly, the way Nana did most important things.
She was in the kitchen at half past five — her usual early hour, the habit of years — making tea, standing at the counter in the grey pre-dawn the way she had stood at the kitchen counter on a Friday morning in January when she had first understood what was beginning. The symmetry was not lost on her. The kitchen was where things started, in this household. The kitchen was where they came back to.
