Travails of a Trailing Spouse

by Stephanie Suga Chen

  “Are you going to do it?” Ashley asked.

  “No, I sent her an email that I didn’t think it was a good fit and she wrote me back saying she understood, and wished me luck,” Sarah said.

  “At least you and Jason can laugh about it?” Carys said. “As in, ‘remember that time we tried marriage counselling…’ ”

  “Yeah, I guess there’s that,” Sarah responded.

  It was October again, and the bar off the lobby of the hotel adjacent to The Manchester, which the Crew had been to a few times, but usually only as a last resort as it was a bit sterile and a little too close to home, had recently rebranded and was advertising an Oktoberfest Grand Re-Opening, complete with a live band and a beer-chugging contest. CS rounded the men up again, hoping to repeat the fun of the previous year, although he would end up with a last-minute client meeting and only arrive just as the festivities were ending. Hoping not to repeat the crimes of that year, Sarah rounded up the women as well.

  Jason had an uncanny guzzling ability, a trait his son had inherited. The first time Sarah had given Eric a juice box, no sooner had she started to caution him not to squeeze too hard than she realised he had already sucked the entire thing dry, before she had even finished the sentence. Whenever they were standing in the security line at the airport and discovered undrunk water in their bottles just as they were approaching the X-ray machines, Sarah would start to stress, unsure where to dump the water; Jason would simply grab the bottles, one by one, and finish them off with plenty of time to spare.

  The MC of the night directed the contestants to spread out behind a row of tables that had been lined up end to end. She walked down the line, asking them to state their names into the microphone as the bartender passed out pints of beer. Just before she called the start of the contest, Jason raised his hand and asked if he could use the restroom. Sarah groaned; if there was anything her husband’s body could do faster than take in liquids, it was expel them – the man went to the bathroom more often than a pregnant woman in her third trimester. The MC, still smiling, shook her head and said, “So sorry, we must get started.”

  She raised her hand, shouting, “On your mark,” (only she pronounced it “mock”), “Get set,” then she lowered her arm as she shouted the last command, “Drink!”

  Sarah rarely encouraged her husband to drink, but that night saw her leaping onto a chair and screaming at the top of her lungs, “Drink faster, Jason, faster!” It was the only time in the history of their relationship that she had to take full responsibility for his drunken state that evening; although the contest required Jason to drink only two pints of beer, the speed at which they entered his body, combined with the two or three drinks he had drunk earlier in the night, caused him to act as if he had consumed at least twice the amount. After the night was over, Sarah took his arm as they walked together from the hotel bar around to the other side of their condo building, where the residential lobby was located.

  Jason won the contest, handily, besting John and Ian as well as the seven other competitors, drinking two pints of Erdinger White in 28 seconds, beating his closest challenger, a Singaporean, by more than three seconds. John barely touched his second pint, stopping after the first one to let out a long burp and patting his stomach uncomfortably, and Ian gave up once Jason slammed down his empty glass. CS, however, arriving as the MC awarded Jason his prize – vouchers for 20 free pints, which would keep the Crew going back to the bar for the next six months – would be the most surprised of anyone that night, shaking his head and saying, “I can’t believe I missed a drinking contest that Jason Lee won,” sounding, frankly, a little bit racist.

  chapter 22

  DISNEYLAND

  IT WAS RUBY’S turn for birthday celebrations – she was turning six on the 15th of November and was as excited as, well, a five-year-old about to turn six. In addition to a gym party for her classmates to be held the weekend after, which was more expensive but much easier to plan than Eric’s party, Sarah and Ruby flew off to Hong Kong for a two-night stay at Disneyland for a special mother-daughter birthday trip.

  After landing, they got in a cab at the airport, and when they arrived at the Disneyland Hotel, the first thing they saw were Sully and Mike from Monsters, Inc., stationed in the lobby in true Disney spirit, posing for pictures and waving cheerily to Sarah and Ruby as they walked in. A doorman dressed in coattails held the door open, bowed his head deeply and removed his hat in dramatic fashion, saying to Ruby in slightly-accented English, “Welcome to the Disneyland Hotel, my lady.” Ruby looked at Sarah and giggled.

  They entered their room and saw two double beds; a small towel folded into the shape of a cake and decorated with pipe cleaners accompanied by a small envelope was lying on the end of one of the beds. Sarah handed the envelope to Ruby, saying, “I think this is for you.” Ruby smiled, removing the card, and reading aloud, “Dear Ruby, may all your wishes come true. Happy Birthday!”

  She looked at Sarah, saying, “But it’s not my birthday until Tuesday. And how did they know, Mommy?” Sarah smiled and told her that she had informed them when making the reservation, even if it was still a few more days until her actual birthday.

  They admired the room, the fun character-themed wallpaper and shower curtains, the colourful carpet and bedspreads, the Mickey-shaped slippers, two pairs each of adult- and child-sized, Ruby ecstatic that they could bring a set home for her daddy and Eric. After changing into their pyjamas and brushing their teeth, Sarah checked the TV and found a channel that was showing “Bedtime Stories”, shortened versions of Disney movies that were read aloud like books, and best of all, had a language setting that Sarah could change to Mandarin.

  They cuddled in Ruby’s bed, watching the Monsters, Inc. story, which was based on the movie which Ruby had seen before but seemed to have forgotten, as she gasped at the suspenseful parts and was relieved when the little girl, Boo, finally returned home safely. When it was over, Ruby asked if she could watch another one, but Sarah said that they would have a big day tomorrow and it was best she got some rest. Ruby nodded, and snuggled in with her stuffed Minnie Mouse, which she had dug up from her toy trunk just for this trip, swapping out Baby Bear, her usual favourite stuffed toy.

  Sarah turned down the lights and climbed into the other bed, watching Ruby lovingly as her little girl fell asleep almost immediately. Sarah had gone to Disney World in Florida for the first time when she was in high school, with her parents as part of a larger group, spending two days at the theme park before boarding a Disney cruise to the Bahamas. She had broken off with a few other kids her age, and they had had fun, of course, taking advantage of the shorter lines while the evening parade was in progress and riding Space Mountain three times in a row, but it was nothing compared to seeing Sleeping Beauty’s castle for the first time through the eyes of a five-year-old, even one who hadn’t seen that many Disney movies.

  They woke up early; Ruby put on a pink and black polka-dot dress and asked Sarah to help her with her hair clips, black barrettes that had Minnie Mouse ears and pink bows affixed to the topside of them. They had breakfast at the hotel restaurant, with Sarah genuinely wondering how on earth they made the yolks of their hard-boiled eggs into Mickey shapes, then took the shuttle over to the park, Ruby delighting in the bronze statues and trimmed hedges that had been shaped into the figures of Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and many other characters that she hadn’t known until just then, but whose names would easily roll off her tongue before the day was over.

  After getting their tickets scanned at the park entrance, Sarah stopped at the Visitor Information Centre to pick up a special pin that the park gave out to guests who had birthdays within a week of their visit. They would soon find out that all staff members had stickers of different kinds that they had ready to hand out to any guest wearing the special birthday pin. Ruby would be surprised time and time again when the ride operators, street sweepers, and sometimes even the characters, would hand her a sticker and say, “Happy Birthd
ay!”

  After a morning of rides, including “It’s a Small World” twice, and seeing The Lion King live performance, they had lunch and headed back to their hotel for a nap, planning on coming back in the afternoon and staying through the evening fireworks show.

  Later at the park, as Sarah hoisted Ruby on her shoulders to have a better view of the fireworks that would be launched over the castle, they would encounter the only negative that would mar the near-perfect trip; though it was already November, it was still rather warm and the Hong Kong mosquitoes were alive and thriving, attacking Ruby’s bare legs, leaving her with at least a dozen bites.

  After Ruby fell asleep that night, Sarah sent Jason a rundown of the day’s events, telling him that they missed him and Eric, but were having a wonderful time. Her shoulders ached a little from carrying Ruby on them, but she was not yet sleepy, so she went online and spent more than 20 minutes clicking through a large photo album of nuns in Myanmar that another kindergarten mother, a Singaporean named Su Lin, had just posted.

  Su Lin had a day job as an operations support officer at the MOE, but was also an avid photographer and loved to travel, documenting her frequent trips in gorgeous, vivid photos. It was one of those posts that caught Sarah’s eye, the shaved heads and pink robes of the young nuns drawing her in to see more. The ages ranged from younger than Ruby to teenagers, Sarah guessed, and their expressions were pure and unadulterated, not having the daily experience of having to pose for pictures like most children did these days.

  She was intrigued and tried to learn more about the nunnery, but Su Lin hadn’t detailed the exact name of the place; instead, Sarah ended up spending another hour reading about religion and politics in Myanmar, a country she had known very little about and would not have been able to identify on a map until that night.

  There was no official state religion of Myanmar, she learned, although a vast majority of its citizens practised Theravada Buddhism. Nunneries, like the one Su Lin had visited, acted as orphanages and schools for families that could not otherwise provide for their daughters.

  Politically, Myanmar, or Burma, as it had been previously known, was declared independent from Britain in 1948, but since then, it had been involved in one of the world’s longest running civil wars, with a military dictatorship ruling despite numerous attempts at overthrowing it. Sarah ended up that night also downloading and watching The Lady, a film starring Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh as Aung San Suu Kyi, housewife turned leader of the democratic uprising in Myanmar. Tears rolled uncontrollably down Sarah’s cheeks during the scene when a military official sat across from the title character, at her family home where she had been held under house arrest for what would be a total of 15 years, telling her that she could leave the country to see her dying husband back in the UK, but would never be permitted to return, stating, “You are free to choose, Madam: your husband and children, or your country,” to which she responded, “Now what kind of freedom is that?”

  Sarah thought of her parents leaving Taiwan in the early ’70s under the US Immigration Act of 1965, which abolished the prior exclusionary immigration law against, and expanded the number of visas available for, immigrants from Asian countries. At the same time, her father had also been named on the blacklist of Taiwanese dissidents who had been actively fighting the KMT government, which had taken over Taiwan after fleeing China, so when he left on that day in 1970, his Taiwan passport actually had already been revoked and he had no idea when or if he would ever be permitted to return. As it turned out, it would be nearly 20 years before martial law was lifted in Taiwan, and even then, when her father finally returned to his homeland, it was under a single-entry visa for 30 days stamped in his United States passport.

  Sarah tried to imagine what it was like, to live a life full of such intense conflict, but to really feel something, so strongly, to have to face a choice that difficult. When she finally put her iPad away, it was past 2am.

  Ruby woke early again on the morning of the second day, wanting to wear the same exact outfit as the day before, and really, how could Sarah argue with her darling daughter, who wanted to dress like Minnie Mouse at Disneyland, two days in a row? They had steamed buns for breakfast in the cafe, made and decorated in the shape of Mickey and Minnie that were almost too pretty to eat. As they would be checking out that day, Sarah packed their bags, Ruby carefully going through the inventory of the hotel room to see what she could keep and what would have to stay (shampoo and conditioner with Mickey ear tops: keep; bedspread runner and bathrobes: stay).

  Being a Monday, it was much less crowded than the previous day, and they easily finished exploring the parts of the park that they had not gone to on Sunday, with plenty of time to go back to Ruby’s favourite ride, “It’s a Small World”. (A few years later, the Lees would go to China and visit the newly-opened, utterly colossal Shanghai Disneyland and be in disbelief that it had chosen not to include the perennial favourite in favour of other, newer attractions.)

  The last activity they did was a drawing class. Ruby and Sarah took front row seats, feeling very professional with their large-format art paper and sharp 2B pencils. The Disney artist led the class in sketching, freehand with no erasing, a classic Minnie Mouse face. Ruby followed along carefully, creating a fine-looking, if slightly lopsided, rendering, and asked Sarah to take a photo and “send it to Daddy right away”.

  As they left the class, they could see that the crowd was already lining up for the parade, which they had missed the previous day due to their afternoon nap; Sarah found an empty bench that was positioned near the end of the parade route and they waited expectantly as the cheerful music started playing over the park loudspeakers. Ruby jumped up in excitement at the sight of Mickey and his baton, leading the marching band at the front of the parade. She waved eagerly with both hands at all the characters, calling out the names that she had learned over the past two days. As the final float turned the corner and the music came to an end, she finally lowered her hands and said to Sarah, “What a nice parade, Mommy.”

  They collected their bags from the luggage check and headed home, Sarah letting Ruby watch movies on the plane back to Singapore. They landed at Changi Airport at 9pm, Ruby falling asleep in the taxi on the way to The Manchester, still clutching the stack of birthday stickers she had collected at the park. Sarah woke her gently when they arrived, and walked her through the lobby and up the lift into their apartment, where Jason, of course, was waiting to greet his first-born child, scooping her up in his arms, showering her with kisses, telling her how much he had missed his girls.

  He had good news for Sarah, too. Just that day, he had received a letter in the mail (“In the mail?” Sarah asked later, incredulous) saying that after investigation by the police, Jason’s arrest for Misconduct in Public by a Drunken Person had been dropped with no charges filed. In typical Singapore fashion, no other details were given, just that he could go to the Bail Centre during business hours to retrieve his passport, and his bail amount would be refunded to the bank account details provided in the original Bail Agreement within 14 working days.

  chapter 23

  BAGUIO

  CARYS WROTE TO the girls asking if anyone was interested in going for Mexican food on Thursday night and then catching a movie afterwards. Sarah hadn’t seen a movie in a cinema in ages; she replied yes and went online to see what was playing. As it happened, Sara and Ashley were both busy that night, so it was going to be just her and Carys.

  As she was getting ready to leave, she asked Jason if he thought she should bring up the incidents involving Ian that she had witnessed or heard about.

  “At this point, it’s been, what, almost a year since we saw him with that Asian woman?” he asked. “It seems kind of irrelevant now.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right about that. What about finding him sleeping at the wrong door?” she asked.

  “Probably not worth bringing up either. That’s just embarrassing,” Jason said.

  Sa
rah put herself in Carys’s shoes. Would she want a friend telling her that her drunk husband had been found asleep outside the wrong door? Probably not. She’d appreciate some discretion, she thought.

  “And the thing you heard from Chad?” Sarah asked.

  “Oh, that. Hm… I’m not sure about that…” Jason answered. CS had told him he knew for a fact that Ian had been hooking up with a woman, someone he had met through work. But when Jason had asked how he knew, he hadn’t really provided solid evidence, only saying, “I just do, mate.” To Sarah, it was still unsubstantiated rumours.

  “So we’ll just go, have some dinner, watch the movie, no big deal,” Sarah said.

  “Sounds good, have fun,” Jason said, already putting in his earbuds to watch something on his laptop.

  Things had been going pretty well with Jason since she and Ruby had got back from Hong Kong and the arrest problem had been settled; the holidays were approaching again and this year, they decided to stay in Singapore, avoiding the long flights and dreaded jet lag. The marriage counselling session, if nothing else, had eased some of the tension between them. Things were slow at the university as well, with many of the foreign professors already away on vacation; Jason was also taking it a little easier, coming home even earlier than usual on many days over the past few weeks.

  Sarah met Carys at the taqueria at the mall, which was somewhat comparable to the places she had frequented back in San Francisco, in every way except price. She had already become desensitised to the sky-high cost of eating out in restaurants in Singapore, though, so she didn’t blink twice when ordering her $18 steak burrito. Carys ordered the same, and since it was still technically Happy Hour, they added one-for-one margaritas onto their order.

  Sarah asked how work was going and Carys said that things were fine; nothing much new to report, although she had caught a couple of her students the other day, in full school uniforms, smoking on the side of the road, just down from the school.