Chapter Twenty-Three #3
She was now in physical therapy for tendonitis in her knee, and that issue was slowly improving, but they hadn’t been running
or hiking together in months.
“Probably shouldn’t hike yet.” She lowered her phone and smiled at him. “What about kayaking?”
Neither of them had ever kayaked, but Tyler would have jumped out of a plane if Helen had suggested it. “Kayaking sounds fun,”
he said.
And just like that, they took up kayaking.
It was on the crisp blue waters of Lake Washington and Lake Union that Helen and Tyler started having the good conversations
again.
She came to understand that the reason she didn’t want to buy a house with Tyler wasn’t because of Tyler, and it wasn’t because
she’d fallen out of love with him; it was because to afford it, they would need both their current incomes. If the mortgage
relied on her marketing salary, it would mean she was truly trapped. The feeling of being stuck in her job had been pressing
down on her, slowly but increasingly so for years, and it had sapped the joy out of her.
“I remember on our first date,” Tyler said, “you talked about not liking your job.”
“I know. I guess I just figured as I got promoted and made more money, it would get better. It doesn’t really work like that
though.”
“I’ve told you to leave,” he said. “Do something else.”
“But I don’t know what else to do. Who are these people who wake up with all these dreams and a clear vision and conviction?”
“Total assholes.”
Helen laughed and looked over at him. They were in solo kayaks that day. His forearms were getting tan from their Saturday
excursions on the water, and he needed a haircut. It was blowing in the wind, and he looked adorable. She had started to enjoy
their goodbye kisses in the elevator again.
“You work so hard though,” she said. “If I leave my job and try something else, or go back to school, it means we’ll have
to keep living in an apartment for who knows how long.”
“Oh, Helen,” Tyler said. “I don’t care about owning a house. Anywhere you are, that’s my home.”
Once Helen gave herself permission to consider the next phase of her life, she suddenly felt like she was walking around with
pockets full of possibility. She didn’t feel any rush to give notice at her job, but she felt the buoyancy of new beginnings
nonetheless. At work, at home, in everything.
Memories of Helen’s early days with Tyler returned to her, and she even found a note she’d written to him only months into
dating. It was so full of lust and passion. She stared at the words until she could truly feel the imprint of that golden
time. She realized how very wrong she’d been to mistake her numbness for life as a numbness for her husband.
One Saturday, she emerged from the bedroom wearing a crisp white button-up shirt, her hair coiled in a bun, Tyler’s reading
glasses perched on her nose. She wasn’t wearing any pants.
Tyler was blending a protein shake in the kitchen. When Helen walked in, he pressed the stop button. “What are you doing?”
“I’ve decided what my next career move is going to be.”
“Is it in the adult entertainment industry?”
Helen smiled. “Close. I’m going to be a museum curator.”
Tyler nodded because that did, indeed, make sense. All those hours watching the History Channel and those winter Sundays walking
through the Museum of Flight and the Garden of Glass. Helen loved going places and seeing things: zoos, bookstores, festivals.
Whatever it was, she was always fascinated with the origin of it all. Their trip together to New York had been a lot less
about the nightclubs and the food and a lot more about Ellis Island and the Hell Gate Bridge.
“I could take night classes at U-Dub, get my history degree, and between that and my communications degree, I’d be highly
qualified to take over the museum world.”
“You would.”
She went to him and put her arms around his waist.
He looked down at her bare legs. “Are you going to wear pants when you run these museums?”
“During visiting hours, yes. After hours, when all the exhibits come to life and you come in to see me, no pants.”
Tyler lifted Helen and set her on the counter. “What kind of things will you do to me after hours?”
She whispered to him the things she’d do.
Then she unzipped his pants and showed him.
That summer, Helen started a class at the University of Washington in comparative colonialism. It was an evening class on
Mondays and Wednesdays, and she had purchased a parking pass, but Tyler insisted on driving her that very first night.
As the car idled in the drop-off area by Red Square, he said, “I’ll pick you up at eight.”
“I’ll be so much smarter by eight.”
“Even smarter?” Tyler said. “God, save me.”
Helen leaned across the front seat and hugged him.
“Thank you,” she said softly. She wasn’t just talking about the ride.
Helen learned more about enduring love in that year than she did in the years that preceded or followed it. Just when she
thought she’d ruined her marriage, she breathed a little life into it and watched it come back alive, brighter than before.