The day I threw the breast-shaped ice pack into my daughter's preschool lunchbox, I was longing for connection. It was a warm, early summer day, my son was three weeks old, and I was dizzily adrift in fatigue and bodily fluids. My husband and I were amiable but distant co-workers in a newly intensified household economy. While he wiped breakfast off the floor, I raced to assemble my daughter's lunch, fretting about keeping the contents cool in the heat. My daughter clamored for someone to bring her the crayons, and the baby fussed in his bouncer. My husband watched me from across the room as I fumbled around the freezer for the usual ice pack, came up empty handed, and grabbed the one thing available — the perfectly round, purple-beaded disks I'd used to ease breast pain in those first few heavy, milky postpartum days.
"They'll know!" he laughed.
