Summary

"Labor" focuses on Olive Kitteridge, about whom Jack so frequently thought in the previous chapter. Olive reflected on having recently helped a young woman give birth. They had been at a baby shower for someone else when the woman excused herself and Olive sensed that something was wrong. She found her in the kitchen, clearly in labor. In her recollections, Olive’s emotions were dominated primarily by irritation with the girl for not recognizing that her contractions meant she should be prepared for labor, and instead believing that she could not possibly give birth because she wasn’t due for another week.

Olive then drove to a local restaurant to buy a lobster roll, which she ate in her car at a lookout point by the coast. Seeing a man in the car next to her, also eating lunch, she waved and was agitated...