The Daily Novel

Chapter Seventeen
She didn’t dare go to the hospital. She could just imagine! So she called her doctor’s office, then called the nurse-midwife with whom she had also consulted. “I’ll be right over,” Anna said. It was 10 PM by now. Why do babies love to get themselves born at night? Marie mused between contractions.
But in [...]

Chapter Sixteen
They noticed Marie was missing. Her car wasn’t there. She hadn’t been seen at home, or at Office Central, or anywhere else around. “Where’s your wife?” one of the vigil-keepers asked. The two reporters who were looking for an interview perked up and paid attention.
“Out of town for a little while,” Cole answered.
“Where’d she [...]

Chapter Fifteen
It almost seemed they were roommates. They never made love anymore. They hardly talked—certainly not the way they’d used to.
For the lovemaking, or lack of it, Marie blamed her swollen belly. It got in the way, even when they were sleeping. Lying on her left, facing Cole, Marie would roll over during the night [...]

Chapter Fourteen
“Maybe it is a special baby.” Cole had that earnest look on his face. He was trying really hard to convince Marie, but she wasn’t sure he was convinced himself. And he seemed too interested in persuading her—as if it was important to him, not just something he believed, but something he wanted her [...]

Chapter Thirteen
A period of relative calm followed. The press kept it down to a minimum, and Cole kept his temper in check. Marie savored the peacefulness, hoping that things were actually settling down and her life might regain some semblance of normality. Unfortunately, that was just a foolish dream. It was the calm before the [...]

Chapter Twelve
For a time, the media fed off Adam’s press conference and the one with Reverend Argyle that followed. Connor kept muttering in the background about the Antichrist, but nobody seemed to be paying him much mind, and he didn’t even appear to be trying to get publicity. After a while, things kind of died [...]

Chapter Eleven
Why couldn’t this Marie woman be a member of their church? It would have been so much better for the Life Force Spiritual Path if Marie had been a member, Adam thought. After all, LFSP believed in the Second Coming, believed Marie was probably bearing the next incarnation of the messiah. And if the [...]

Chapter Ten
“Are we riding in together?” It wasn’t as if Cole didn’t see enough of his wife, and it wasn’t as if the drive to work was so long that taking two cars was a serious expenditure of gas. Yet any day that Marie took her own car to work was a Major Disappointment in [...]

Chapter Nine
The tension had blown over by the next day.  Marie got up feeling mildly queasy but decided it was merely a nervous reaction to the previous day’s unpleasantness, not morning sickness. And in fact, she easily wolfed down a cup of coffee, four crisp strips of bacon, two fried eggs, and an English muffin [...]

Chapter Eight
Sheila sat on the edge of the bed, waiting. Marie, in the bathroom, called out anxiously, “I can’t pee. I’m too nervous.”
“Wait another hour. Try again,” Sheila sensibly suggested.
“I’ve waited three days already. I bought the damn test kit Wednesday. But I couldn’t do it when Cole was around, and then I was in [...]