And then there is the story of the young woman who, recently married—15 months’ worth—becomes predictably pregnant, does her nine-month duty, and among much fanfare, delivers a sturdy pink boy who knows all about being loud and squirmy, but never mind, let the breastfeeding begin. But, before the son is even one month old—29 days to be precise–she and her banker husband decide that they need a break, call it a 10-day vacation, to recover, because, after all, it has been a long nine months, ask anybody, and so they catch the next flight to Bangkok, leaving the newborn with Mom, assorted aunts, and one homesick nanny who has three kids of her own back in Manila. The breastfeeding takes a holiday.

Part two of the story says that once they arrived in Bangkok and found their way to the 5-star luxury hotel, that she was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt for leaving her baby and begged her banker husband to book a return flight immediately, if not sooner, but he, not being a banker for nothing, said to her, “Wait. We need sleep, and rest. We can have this talk in the morning, sah?” And so they fell asleep, or at least he did.
They awoke to a humid Bangkok morning, thick with a bright silver mist, and as he looked out over the city from the 10th floor, he decided to go down to the lobby restaurant because she insisted on more time to shower, to dress, to make herself right. All the while her breasts hadn’t stopped aching, her face a long-flight blotchy.
When she finally went down to the restaurant—tea, toast and eggs, not to mention a bouquet of orchids in the center of the table—she still felt guilty about leaving her new son behind, but not as much. At this point he asked her, “And how did you sleep?”
She said, “At first not well at all but later, a deep sleep; in fact, my muscles are still sore from sleep.” They both thought this funny, but not the laugh-out-loud funny.
He smiled and before long they were talking about what to do and see in the city. “We can go to the Floating Market, they say that’s a wonder. Imagine, a floating market. Of course, there are always the temples and who knows, maybe an elephant or two. Would you like to ride an elephant?”
Because she was feeling better about almost everything, she nodded a yes.
After breakfast with orchids, they returned to a clean room, the maids leaving behind some of the whitest, brightest towels they had ever seen. Once the mist melted away, they could see more of the city from the tenth floor—a glitter of temples here and there. All that helped, and her feeling better continued.
After a Floating Market tour—with a guide full of bad teeth, speaking a kind of English–the humidity had worn them down by mid-afternoon and they hurried back to the tenth floor, where she almost immediately called her mother to ask about the new son; and her mother, in typical Mom fashion, reassured her that all was well, that her son was fast asleep, etc. “In fact, it is almost as if he never knew you were gone,” said Mom in what she thought was a helpful way. But of course that started her crying once again, as the husband watched and listened from the bed.
Later, she told her husband that because her breasts were still sore and leaking, maybe she would stay in bed tomorrow. Take a hot shower and return to bed. He thought about this for a moment before saying, “Don’t be silly. We are on vacation, and who knows when we’ll get a chance to do this again. Don’t be silly.”
She did not disagree with her husband, but her breasts continued to leak. That night, sleep did not come easy for her as a heavy rain battered the windows. Tossing and turning until her husband asked, “What? What?” she stepped to the windowpane and placed her cheek against the cool glass. Early the next morning, she called her mother again, and again Mom tried to say all the right things: her son was sleeping now but had woken up in the middle of the night to squirm and cry.
She said, “Cry? Why? What’s wrong?”
But her mother, not being a mother for nothing, laughed and said, “My dear, that is what babies do.”
For one week the new mother with banker husband saw Bangkok just like that. There were more city tours, gifts to buy, photos to take, beggars to ignore, new foods to eat, the daily phone calls to Mother, and so on. As their vacation ended, her breasts felt better, two hot showers a day had made all the difference. The daily calls to Mom had slowly pushed her guilt into a corner that no longer made her cry; in fact, in the end, it was only as they were flying back, somewhere over India, that she remembered to cry, one last time.

Photo by Jenna Norman on Unsplash.