Page 1 of Spectacular Things
An Early Labor Day
The bridge isup.
Of course itis.
The bridge is up and the baby is coming.
“Maybe it’s a good sign?” Mia says from the passenger seat.
“Definitely,” Oliver agrees, shifting the car into park. “Back to how it all began.” He reaches over to touch Mia’s knee, but only briefly. It’s August and unbearably hot.
They sit. They wait. They sweat.
In the surrounding vehicles, tourists roll down their windows and hold up their phones to document the high drama of a drawbridge: how the road rises into a wave of asphalt that eclipses the sun.
“I should text Cricket,” Mia says, closing her eyes as the next contraction builds. “Right? I should text her?”
“Sure, if you want—”
“I’m not going to.” Mia leans forward and bows her head to ride out the pain. “She needs to focus.”
“So do you.”
“Worst-case scenario, we’ll stream the game on my phone.” Mia had a feeling this exact situation would occur: her labor coinciding with the Summer Olympics Gold Medal match between the U.S. Women’s National Team and the Netherlands.
Game day for both Lowe sisters.
Oliver drums his thumbs on the top of the steering wheel. “This feels longer than usual,” he says, looking past Mia and out toward the bay. “I don’t even see a boat.”
For summer people, the notion of a drawbridge is intrinsically romantic—an engineered nudge to slow down and enjoy the view. It’s why they come here. Because like Maine itself, the bridge serves as a reminder that this is The Way Life ShouldBe.
Locals running late, however, tell a different story.
Especially this time of year, in the high season, when just one ship can delay hundreds of cars, thousands of start times, and, as of twenty minutes ago, at least one woman in labor, which, for Mia in this moment, begs the question, Is this the way life shouldbe?
Finally, the drawbridge comes together like clasped hands and settles back down into one unified road. The arm of the barrier gate lifts. The bell rings. Oliver steps on the gas.
At the hospital, there is no bursting through doors or rushing down halls or screaming out for drugs. Instead, there is only a long but entirely civilized line to check in at the front desk of the maternity ward.
“It’s like an Apple Store,” Mia jokes nervously, trying to summon her sister’s sense of humor, strength, and capacity for pain.
Cricket would be so good in this situation—her mind and body hammered into steel over decades of training.
Cricket thrives on high stakes, loves high stakes, has made an entire career out of high stakes.
Mia, however, prefers reliable outcomes. She believes a surprise is called an upset for a reason: that a sudden change in expectations is indeed upsetting.
A nurse calls out her name. Oliver takes Mia’s hand and follows her lead. He squeezes her fingers as they walk past a room with a baby crying, and then he squeezes again when they hear a mother sobbing.
“Oh, thank God,” Mia says when they enter the delivery room, beaming at the sizable television mounted on the wall. Oliver grabs the remote and speeds through the channels until that familiar stretch of green consumes the screen.
“Big soccer fans?” the nurse asks, eyeing the husband and wife’s matching U.S. jerseys. Mia’s kit is stretched so tightly over her stomach that the nurse wonders if all that compression helped to induce labor and how, exactly, they’re going to get it off.
“My sister is one of the goalkeepers,” Mia volunteers just before doubling over.
The contractions up until now have been relatively minor.
But they are suddenly excruciating, walloping, and relentless.
She doesn’t want to do this. She can’t do this, and she’s about to say so to Oliver, but then she hears her mother’s voice in her ear, reminding her, just as she always has: No pain, no gain.
Mia knows there is only one way to meet her baby, and it’s through this gauntlet of agony. She is a Lowe, not a quitter, and so Mia closes her eyes and channels her mother’s resilience, her sister’s stamina. She remembers to focus on this moment just as the nurse jabs an IV into her forearm.
“To be honest, I’m more of a hockey guy,” the nurse says, and then, recalling a provocative Super Bowl commercial that penetrated every corner of the globe, he looks at Mia with sudden intrigue. “So your sister knows Sloane Jackson?”