Travails of a Trailing Spouse

by Stephanie Suga Chen

  “What do you mean, he’s ‘given you’?” Carys asked, sounding dubious.

  “That I don’t have to work,” Sara responded. “My goal while I’m here is to be a good wife and a good mother.” John nodded approvingly and patted her leg again.

  “Ha!” Sarah snorted, “That’s like, the complete opposite of what I’m here for – ”

  “– easy…” Jason said jokingly, cutting in.

  “OK, sorry, I mean, of course I want that, too, but it’s like #4 or #5 on my list,” Sarah explained. “Like after ‘find my passion in life’, ‘learn Chinese’, and ‘exercise more’.”

  “Yeah, that’s great, too!” Sara-without-an-H said, always congenial. “Cheers to that!” she said, raising her glass.

  “And cheers to our helpers!” Sarah said, genuinely wanting to toast having Patricia in her life.

  “Definitely,” Jason and Ian agreed, clinking their glasses. The husbands really were the biggest beneficiaries of having helpers, after all. Most would never have to cook a meal their entire stay in Singapore. The other day, Jason had wanted to make a bowl of ramen noodles and literally had not known how to operate the stove to boil water.

  Sarah wondered at how their situations compared to that of her own parents, who had immigrated in the opposite direction, from Taiwan to the US, some 40 years earlier, also seeking a better life, although her parents would tell her that it was easier back then – if you were in the lucky elite that had the grades and a scholarship to go to the US, you went, there was no questioning it. The US was where the opportunities were; her parents had arrived knowing their children would be US citizens and grow up speaking English. They never looked back.

  When Sarah had told her parents she was thinking of quitting her job and moving to Singapore (in truth, the decision had already been made), both her parents had balked, asking if she really thought it was the best decision. Her father had wanted her to start an Asian office for her law firm, not fully appreciating the differences in legal systems and qualifications.

  Her mother had understood, to some extent, the dilemma of continuing in a profession that she wasn’t passionate about; her parents had had to follow a career path that was determined almost solely on one college-entrance exam. Her mother sympathised that Sarah was overworked and unfulfilled at her job, but still, she made one final plea to her, saying, “But you worked so hard to get where you are; just think about what you are giving up.”

  “I know,” Sarah had responded, not needing to be reminded of the salary, and the security that went along with it, that she was renouncing, ostensibly in support of Jason’s career, but also to give herself a chance to find a second career for herself, perhaps. Inwardly, she was glad that she had already handed in her resignation, lest she change her mind after the conversation with her parents.

  chapter 5

  OKTOBERFEST

  JASON AND SARAH couldn’t quite put their finger on when exactly they had met Ashley Sanders’s husband, Chad. All they knew was that at some point during that first year, Chad appeared on the scene, after which he seemed to be everywhere, all the time, a comical presence adding a bit of amusement into their lives.

  Sarah thought that the first time they met him was when Carys had organised a group to attend Trivia Night, a weekly event one of the restaurants up Manchester Park held on Wednesday nights. When Carys arrived at the restaurant, she was told that each team could have a maximum of eight members, no exceptions; unfortunately, including Eliza and her husband, they had nine people (John was travelling again), so they had to split up into two groups, and somehow Chad and Ashley ended up on different teams. The restaurant was also quite crowded that night – Trivia Night was popular among expats and locals alike – so the two groups also ended up being seated quite far apart from each other, adding to the difficulty in recognising how Chad was related to anyone.

  When Sarah and Jason arrived, late, after all the team member allocation hubbub had occurred, Carys and Ian were seated already, along with this unknown man, who spoke to them as if they knew each other already. Jason thought that maybe they had met him out at the pool sometime before that night, but Sarah didn’t think she would have forgotten meeting Chad. It wasn’t just because he was tall and goofy, with floppy hair and a toothy grin, it was for the simple reason that Chad Sanders had one defining characteristic: he never wore shoes.

  That night, at the restaurant – sure, it was the outdoor patio of a restaurant, but a restaurant nonetheless – Chad was sitting on a long bench, legs outstretched, wiggling his bare toes.

  Sarah had commented, “In a rush to get out, I see?”, to which Chad had responded, “I’m a New Zealander, I didn’t even own shoes until I was about 10 years old,” eliciting laughs all around.

  It had been a fun night, with their team doing well, as they had Sarah, the lawyer, statistically the best profession at trivia (true statement, look it up!) and Carys, the teacher, statistically only second to lawyers in the trivia stakes, and who also spoke a slew of European languages, which proved crucial for at least two of the categories that night. Between the two women, they talked through each question, very often coming up with the correct answer through deductive reasoning and working off each other’s knowledge, leaving Jason and Ian to simply sit back and admire the intelligence – and of course beauty, that went without saying – of their wives, while Chad threw in the occasional “yeah, I reckon that sounds right”. Jason, who was really just there for the beer, jokingly protested that these kinds of trivia questions were always culturally biased. In truth, however, culture had nothing to do with it; even in the General Science category, Sarah knew more answers than him. Trivia just wasn’t his thing, although he and Ian shared two very exuberant high fives during the final Picture Round, when they successfully deciphered the company names “Nabisco” and “Stella Artois”.

  It wasn’t until one or two weekends later, when Sarah saw Chad again at the café downstairs holding Lucas, that it dawned on her that he was Chad Sanders, the one married to the very American, very non-Kiwi, Ashley Sanders. Later, Ashley told the women that she and Chad had met on the streets of New York City where he had been – this is where she prefaced the tale with “I’m totally serious, girls” – delivering beer to a corner bodega, at which point Sarah asked, “Was he wearing shoes?”

  As crazy as the match might seem, they were making it work, Ashley content to stay home in her air-conditioned wonderland on most days, while Chad could often be found, barefoot, wandering around the vicinity of the condo, getting a coffee, taking Lucas to the playground, or just out and about looking for some entertainment. (Does that man ever work? Sarah wondered.)

  One afternoon, Sara and Sarah were in the cold whirlpool part of the pool with all the kids; Ethan and Ruby had just learned how to float and were excitedly “swimming” from one side to the other, with just one short stroke required. Sara, holding Jakey while he waved his hands around, had referred to Chad as a “H-O-T-T-I-E” (yes, she spelled it out), to which Sarah had laughed out loud. It wasn’t that he wasn’t a decent-looking guy, just that it was all so ridiculous, the two of them, almost 40 years old, sitting at the pool with their four kids, gossiping about their neighbours.

  Sarah went home and told Jason what the other Sara had said, with Jason responding, “Wait, who did she call a hottie?” to which Sarah had said, “C.S.”, whispering and using initials in mock secrecy. Jason had replied, “Hmm, really? Not Ian? C.S.… who would have thunk…”

  Soon after that, likely unrelated to the “hottie” comment or maybe it was completely related, Jason and “CS” struck up a mini bro-mance; on weekend mornings, Jason would say to little Eric, “Let’s go out to the playground and see if there are any friends out there. And by friends, I mean Daddy’s friends.” In the evenings, Sarah would catch Jason checking his phone and snickering to himself, knowing that Chad had probably just sent him some off-colour photo or link.

  Chad did indeed seem to find himself in
interesting situations, like the time Jason was waiting for the lift one morning. When the door opened, he saw that Chad was already in there, coming down from the 19th floor. Jason said hello and as the lift whooshed down, he heard Chad utter a sudden, “Oh, piss.” Jason turned around and saw that Chad had caught the bottom of his button-down shirt on the edge of the lift handrail, and it had ripped – not just a small, unobtrusive tear, but a long, jagged, gaping rip, running clear up to his armpit. Jason loved to relay these kinds of stories to Sarah, finding CS an endless source of entertainment.

  Ashley told Sarah that the interest was mutual – Chad also mentioned Jason to her often, and fondly, as in, “That Jason, can you believe we know an actual neuroscientist?” It was the first time Jason’s profession had carried any social currency of any kind, and of course he deserved it, too.

  They weren’t sure who started it, but very soon Jason and Sarah were meeting their neighbours for regular Wednesday Trivia Nights and Thursday or Friday nights down at Club Street, at a bar where Ian did a little DJ-ing on the side, or Holland Village, where they relived their younger days rocking out to a talented cover band with a quirky Malaysian female lead singer. Saturday nights were almost always dinner out at a “nice” (as if every meal they had wasn’t nice!) restaurant downtown, followed by drinks at another cool bar somewhere else.

  On Sunday mornings, the day most helpers were off, the men could usually be found taking one or more children out to the playground; it was the tacit deal they had made with their wives to let them drink themselves to oblivion on Saturday nights – as long as they got up on Sunday mornings to mind the older one while Mum was with the baby, or in Jason and Sarah’s case, tend to the younger, more annoying one, who woke at 6am every day asking “Is it morning time?”, and letting Sarah sleep in with their lazier, older child.

  Jason and Sarah eventually made a few friends who lived elsewhere who would call their group of neighbours “The Manchester Crew”, as in, “What are you doing tonight; do you want to do something with us or are you hanging out with The Manchester Crew?”

  Jason got on well enough with his faculty co-workers – from whom he picked up the very useful piece of information that a craft beer at a local coffee shop or hawker centre was a lot more affordable than in a bar – but when asked a few times by Sarah if he wanted to hang out with them socially, he would shake his head, saying he saw enough of them all day, five days a week.

  One night, the Crew booked the barbecue area on the fifth-floor pool area; after much boasting and one-upping that often happens when men drink together, CS went up to his apartment and brought down the inflatable boat he had bought in anticipation of rowing around with his barely-just-sitting-up son. He threw it into the water with a splash, and challenged the rest of the Crew to a timed race around the pool. They made so much noise that another resident came down, asking sternly which one of them lived there, assuming the rest were visitors to the building. They responded in unison, triumphantly, “We all do,” hiding behind their numbers, challenging her to ask all of them their names and units. She relented, saying curtly, “Can you please try to keep it down,” and retreated back to the hallway, leaving the Crew giggling like school children.

  In October, CS got tickets from his company to an Oktoberfest event that was being held downtown. The format of the event was that every ticket holder would receive one 500ml beer stein, which they could refill at any of the 30 stalls that had been set up in the indoor arena. Each stall, in addition to selling various Bavarian foods and wines, had one or more beer towers – plastic containers more than a metre tall, made of two concentric cylinders, the inner core filled with ice, the outer one having the capacity of four litres of liquid – set out, dispensing a selection of German and German-sounding beers.

  The men had gone on their own that night; it happened to be a night that John, who was incidentally half-German, not that it mattered, was in town, and they arrived at the arena very near to 6pm, when the doors opened. By the time the event came to a close, six hours later, the four of them – Chad, Jason, Ian and John – had, Sarah estimated later, probably drunk close to 20 litres of beer, or 10 refills each of the pint-sized beer steins.

  Jason was by far the smallest of the four, less than 60kg soaking wet, and although his tolerance for beer was surprisingly high, Sarah didn’t want to be around to see the effect of that much beer on that slight of a build so she had gone to sleep in their oddly-shaped guest room, actually closing the door firmly so he wouldn’t be tempted to come in and chat with her, something he liked to do when he had had a few too many, asking questions like, “You want to hear something funny?” or “Can I tell you something?” Years ago, Sarah had nicknamed this boorish, speech-slurring character “Drunk Jason”, and she wanted to exit any scene in which he appeared.

  The next morning, the women were relieved, and, frankly, a little surprised, to find that their husbands had all made it home in one piece; Ashley and Sarah were even more astonished, and more than a little dismayed, to find, on their respective kitchen counters, a 1.2m-tall plastic beer tower that no doubt had been appropriated in a manner that no one would be able to recall.

  The boys – because who could call them men after what happened that night? – formed a group chat which they named “BYO Ice Penis”, referring to the ice-filled inner cylinder of those pilfered beer towers, which became centrepieces for every gathering they would have going forward, either CS or Jason running up to fetch one in order to signal the start of an impromptu party.

  chapter 6

  ‘ME TIME’

  THE HOLIDAYS WERE approaching, and Singapore embraced it in full force, with all the shopping malls, over 100 spread over the tiny country, decorated from top to bottom in tinsel and lights, and more than half a dozen providing free “snow” shows – thick, bubbly foam blasted from overhead blowers forming a giant bubble bath, where participants were encouraged to come wearing swimsuits.

  Ashley was throwing an early Christmas party at their place; she had gone out and bought a real tree at Ikea, which had been providing Singapore with Nordmann firs for nearly 20 years, shipped in from Sweden in air-conditioned containers to preserve their freshness. The Sanderses’ unit had been transformed into a Land’s End catalogue, down to the stockings hung from the mantle.

  “When did they put in a mantle?” Sarah wondered, when she and Jason arrived. There were no fireplaces in their units, of course, but Ashley had installed a long, dark wood shelf under their mounted TV and it was looking quite festive, with the requisite candles, holly garlands and velvet ribbons surrounding the four matching stockings, which were hung neatly in a row, one each for Chad, Ashley, Lucas and their helper Emily.

  Ashley had invited some other friends, all Americans, whom she had met at various places around town; when the Lees arrived, Sarah was surprised to see a few men wearing baseball caps, a sight not commonly seen in hot and humid Singapore. There were a handful of people in the living room, sitting on the couches and side chairs, watching what appeared to be a college football game on TV.

  After saying hello, Jason asked Ashley in wonder, “They have college football playing here? What channel?”

  Ashley responded, “Oh, we’ve got a Slingbox set up in one of my Dad’s spare rooms back in Atlanta. It lets you watch and control whatever’s playing on your TV back home, as long as you have an Internet connection. Couldn’t miss out on watching our Bulldogs!”

  She took the bottle of wine they had brought, offered them drinks and urged them to help themselves to the lavish spread of delicious-looking holiday foods spread across the counter and side table.

  “I love coming to your place, Ashley, seriously,” Sarah said. “I can’t imagine how much money you spent on this cheese log alone,” she continued, reaching to dip a cracker in the pecan-crusted roll set out in front of her.

  “Y’all just enjoy yourselves, all right?” Ashley responded cheerily, heading to the couch area to see if anyone needed their
drinks refreshed.

  “The Lees!” CS came padding out from the bedroom, holding Lucas, who was clad in a University of Georgia red onesie.

  Jason gave him a handshake and expressed surprise that CS would put up with all this “American football nonsense”. CS snorted and said, “You just wait until rugby season starts, mate. This is just warm-up for the real men. Right, Lucas?” He gave Lucas a poke in the belly, and the little boy smiled sheepishly.

  Just then, Sara emerged from one of the bedrooms, the same one that CS had just come out from, holding Jakey in one hand and a folded-up diaper in the other.

  Jason raised an eyebrow at Sarah, who gave him a jab in the ribs. She greeted Sara, who explained, “I was just in the bedroom giving Jakey a change,” and went off to find a garbage can.

  The Lees started eating, drinking, and making light conversation. Jason asked if Carys and Ian were coming; CS said that he thought they had left for the UK already. Ashley turned to Sara and asked her when they were leaving.

  Sara answered, “Actually, we hadn’t planned on going back while we’re living here. It’s such a long trip! My mom and brother are coming, though. They’ll arrive on the 22nd, and John’s leaving for the Philippines for a week on the 26th,” she said.

  “God, they’re really working him hard – isn’t he away now? And then he has to go back the day after Christmas? All the way through New Year’s?” Ashley asked, incredulous.

  “Oh no, it’s not for work,” Sara said, shaking her head.

  “What do you mean?” Sarah asked. “Why is he going, then?”

  “Well, John’s always needed some ‘me time’, he’s gone on solo trips ever since I’ve known him,” the other Sara said.

  “Wait, what?” Jason and Sarah said at the same time.

  “Yeah, the first trip we went on together, he left me for one night in the hotel so he could camp out in the woods,” Sara continued.