Life After Life Chapter 2 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Snow

11 February 1910

  • A girl is suddenly "with no warning, outside the inside and the familiar wet" (2.1)—i.e., she's just been born.
  • But she can't breathe.
  • Sylvie, the mother, is with Bridget, the housemaid, and Dr. Fellowes is stuck in the thick snow.
  • Sylvie's husband, Hugh, isn't around either—he's off finding his sister, Isobel, who has run away to Paris with a man.
  • The baby comes early, and Bridget sees that the cord is wrapped around her neck. She's blue and dead "before she had a chance to live" (2.12).
  • "Darkness fell" (2.14).