[PART 1]
I put the tape measure on the counter. “What does that mean?” Richard stared at the tiny motorhome sink. “Exactly what it sounds like.” We had spent eleven months planning retirement. I had maps covered in colored dots: Badlands in June, Glacier in July, Oregon coast in August, down through California before winter. Richard had researched tires, generators, campground memberships, propane systems, and whether a sixty-nine-year-old man could reasonably empty something called a black-water tank without losing his dignity. He had opinions about all of it.
I put the tape measure on the counter. “What does that mean?” Richard stared at the tiny motorhome sink. “Exactly what it sounds like.” We had spent eleven months planning retirement. I had maps covered in colored dots: Badlands in June, Glacier in July, Oregon coast in August, down through California before winter. Richard had researched tires, generators, campground memberships, propane systems, and whether a sixty-nine-year-old man could reasonably empty something called a black-water tank without losing his dignity. He had opinions about all of it.At no point had he mentioned that the entire plan sounded miserable to him. “You chose this model,” I said. “You said the other one had inadequate storage.” “It did.” “For a trip you don’t want to take?” “If I’m going to be unhappy, I prefer organized cabinets.” I stared at him. The salesman appeared at the doorway carrying financing paperwork, saw my face, and performed one of the fastest professional retreats I have ever witnessed. “Start over,” I said. Richard sat at the dinette. “I don’t like driving all day. I don’t like changing hotels. I don’t like unpacking and repacking. I don’t like trying to sleep in unfamiliar beds. I don’t like arriving somewhere beautiful and immediately discussing where we’re going next.” “You planned half our vacations.” “Because you love them.” “That is not an answer.” “It’s the answer I’ve been using for forty-four years.” Our honeymoon had been a six-day road trip because we could not afford to fly anywhere. The following year, we drove to Tennessee.
Then Colorado. Maine. Yellowstone. Savannah. Santa Fe. For our twenty-fifth anniversary we spent three weeks driving through New England, and Richard had bought me a leather travel journal with my initials stamped on the front. I still had it. “You’re telling me you hated all of that?” “No.” “You just said—” “I hated parts of it.” Richard rubbed his hands together. “I liked waking up next to you. I liked watching you see things. I liked finding terrible diners and arguing about which road was faster. I liked getting somewhere. I just never understood why we had to leave again two days later.” That was not better. It was worse in a more complicated way. “Why didn’t you say anything?” He looked genuinely confused by the size of the question. “At first because you were so happy.” “Richard.”
“I know how that sounds.” Apparently this started during our second year of marriage. We had returned from Tennessee, and I told him that traveling mattered to me because my parents had spent their entire marriage saying they would “go someday.” They never did. My father worked until his health declined. My mother spent years caring for him. Their farthest vacation was three nights at a lake ninety miles from home. I had told Richard, “I don’t want our life to shrink because we keep waiting for the right time.” He heard something I had not actually said. “I thought you were telling me what kind of marriage you wanted,” he said. “I was telling you what kind of life I didn’t want.” “At twenty-five, those sounded identical.” So he said yes whenever I suggested going somewhere.
Eventually I stopped asking whether he wanted to travel and started asking where he wanted to go. “Those are different questions,” he said. I hated that he was right. But I hated more that he had let me spend decades believing we shared something that was mostly mine. “Do you understand how stupid this makes me feel?” I asked. “You weren’t stupid.” “Our Christmas cards have had travel photos for fifteen years. I bought matching luggage.” “I like the luggage.” “That is not helping.” We left the dealership without buying the motorhome. In the parking lot, I asked the question I was afraid of. “How many trips did you actually want?” Richard thought for far too long. “Want before we left?” “Yes.” “Maybe six.” I stopped walking. “Six?” “Helen—” “Out of how many?” “I have no idea.”
“More than six, Richard.” He nodded. I wanted to accuse him of martyrdom, but he didn’t look noble. He looked embarrassed. “I didn’t spend forty-four years suffering silently,” he said. “Once we were somewhere, I usually enjoyed myself. I just would have been equally happy at home.” “That is not the same thing.” “No.” Then he admitted the retirement plan had finally forced the problem. A week-long trip was one thing. Eight months in a vehicle containing a fold-out shower was another. He had tried to convince himself he could do it because I had talked about a long retirement trip for years.
He researched harder whenever he became more doubtful. “So every spreadsheet was panic?” “Not every spreadsheet.” “How many?” “Most after January.” I leaned against our car and laughed once, without humor. “We’re supposed to know each other better than this.” Richard looked at me. “Maybe I knew you well enough to keep saying yes.” “And maybe I knew you badly enough to stop noticing you never said no.” Neither of us had anything clever to say after that.
[PART 2: ENDING PART]For the next two weeks, I did something unfair: I interrogated our vacations. “The Grand Canyon?” I asked over breakfast. “Liked the canyon. Hated the fourteen-hour driving day.” “Charleston?” “Loved Charleston.” “The drive?” “Hated Interstate 95 with the passion of a religious conviction.” “Alaska?” “That one was my idea.” I narrowed my eyes. “You wanted Alaska?” “Yes.” “Why?” “I wanted to see Alaska.” “So you do understand travel.” “Helen, disliking cilantro does not mean I oppose vegetables.” I wrote ALASKA on a notepad under the heading TRIPS RICHARD VOLUNTARILY WANTED. He objected to the heading. I kept it. Eventually the exercise became less about catching him and more about discovering that our memories had not been false.
For the next two weeks, I did something unfair: I interrogated our vacations. “The Grand Canyon?” I asked over breakfast. “Liked the canyon. Hated the fourteen-hour driving day.” “Charleston?” “Loved Charleston.” “The drive?” “Hated Interstate 95 with the passion of a religious conviction.” “Alaska?” “That one was my idea.” I narrowed my eyes. “You wanted Alaska?” “Yes.” “Why?” “I wanted to see Alaska.” “So you do understand travel.” “Helen, disliking cilantro does not mean I oppose vegetables.” I wrote ALASKA on a notepad under the heading TRIPS RICHARD VOLUNTARILY WANTED. He objected to the heading. I kept it. Eventually the exercise became less about catching him and more about discovering that our memories had not been false.They had simply contained different pleasures. I remembered Acadia because we climbed before sunrise. Richard remembered it because we stayed four nights in the same cabin and the owner had a dog named Walter. I remembered Arizona for the red rocks. Richard remembered repairing a stranger’s radiator hose in a motel parking lot and eating pie with him afterward. “You realize you travel like a retired hardware store,” I said. “I require purpose.” “Apparently.” What hurt was not that Richard preferred home. It was that I had never been given a chance to know that about him. I might have traveled with my sister sometimes. I might have stayed longer in fewer places. I might have taken the train while he flew and met me there. Instead, Richard had spent decades treating agreement as kindness. “You robbed yourself too,” I told him one evening. He frowned. “How?” “You could have had forty-four years of occasionally saying, ‘Helen, that sounds awful.’” “You would have been mad.” “Sometimes.” “See?” “Marriage is not a customer satisfaction survey.” He laughed, then admitted something else: he had begun resenting travel in small, ridiculous ways.
He would get quiet the night before we left. He would complain about parking. During our twenty-fifth-anniversary trip through New England, he spent an entire afternoon in Boston criticizing hotel pillows when what he really wanted was to go home. “I thought you hated Boston,” I said. “I hated being on day twelve.” “You could have said that.” “Yes.” That became our new project—not learning to love the same things, but learning to say what we actually wanted before resentment translated it into something stupid. In July, my sister Diane invited me on a nine-day train trip through the
Canadian Rockies. My first instinct was to ask Richard if he wanted to come. I stopped myself. “I want to go with Diane,” I said instead. Richard looked relieved so quickly that I nearly threw a napkin at him. “Try to contain your grief.” “I was going to say I’ll miss you.” “You can do both.” I went. Richard stayed home, repaired the shed door, ate breakfast for dinner twice, and called me exactly three
times because we agreed neither of us needed hourly proof the marriage still existed. I had a wonderful trip. On the third day, I realized something slightly embarrassing: I did not miss Richard every minute. I missed him specifically. I saw a crooked fence and thought he would complain about the posts. I ate terrible pie and wished he were there to judge it professionally. But I did not wish he had come reluctantly just so I would not be alone. When I returned, he met me at the station. “How was it?” “Excellent.” “Would I have liked it?” “Absolutely not.” “Good.” Then he kissed me and carried my suitcase. Three months later, we finally took our first deliberately negotiated vacation. Richard wanted somewhere we could stay put. I wanted somewhere I had never seen.
We rented a cottage on Lake Michigan for ten days. One location. No itinerary beyond a lighthouse, a bookstore, and whatever we felt like doing after breakfast. On day four, I said, “We could drive two hours and see another town.” Richard looked at me carefully. “Do you actually want to?” I thought about it. “Not particularly.” “Then why did you suggest it?” I stared at the lake. “Apparently I also have habits.” We stayed where we were. It was one of the best trips we ever took, partly because neither of us was performing enthusiasm for the other. We never bought the motorhome.
I still travel more than Richard does. Sometimes he comes. Sometimes he says, “That sounds like too many airports,” and I go with someone else. Sometimes he surprises me. Next spring he wants to take a train to New Orleans because, in his words, “You sit down once and the scenery does the moving.” I consider this progress. What I no longer do is ask, “Where should we go?” before asking, “Do you want to go?” They are different questions. It took us forty-four years to notice. Last week I found Richard looking at a brochure for a seven-day trip through Utah. “Thinking of traveling?” I asked. He studied the page. “Maybe.” “Because you want to, or because you think I want you to?” He considered that seriously. “I want three days of it.” “Which three?” “The ones where we’re not changing hotels.” I laughed. “That may be the most honest vacation planning we’ve ever done.” Richard folded the brochure. “Forty-four years. I’m finally getting good at marriage.” “Don’t get ambitious,” I told him. “You still owe me an explanation for Boston.” THE END! THANK YOU FOR READING!
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