One True Loves(20)

I thought about how it felt to stare at something so white it looked blue, so large that you felt small, so peaceful you forgot just what an environmental threat they posed. I understood why he wanted to go. But I also knew that if I were in his position, I’d turn down the opportunity.

Some of it was travel fatigue. He and I had spent almost ten years grabbing on to every opportunity to get on a plane or a train. I was working at a travel blog and writing freelance on the side, doing my best to get placed in loftier and loftier publications.

I was a professional at navigating security checkpoints and baggage claims. I had enough frequent-flyer miles to go absolutely anywhere I dreamed of.

And I’m not saying that travel wasn’t incredible, that our life wasn’t incredible. Because it was.

I had been to the Great Wall of China. I’d hiked a waterfall in Costa Rica. I’d tasted pizza in Naples, strudel in Vienna, bangers and mash in London. I’d seen the Mona Lisa. I’d been inside the Taj Mahal.

I had some of my most incredible experiences abroad.

But I’d also had a lot of them right in my own home. Inventing cheap at-home dinners with Jesse, walking down the street late at night to split a pint of ice cream, waking up early on Saturday mornings to the sun shining through the sliding glass door.

I had predicated my life on the idea that I wanted to see everywhere extraordinary, but I’d come to realize that extraordinary is everywhere.

And I was starting to yearn for a chance to settle in somewhere and maybe, perhaps, not need to rush to get on a plane to go somewhere else.

I had just found out that Marie was pregnant with her first child. She and Mike were buying a house a short commute from Acton. It seemed all but finalized that she would take over the store. The Booksellers’ Daughter realizing her full potential.

But here is what surprised me: I had the smallest inkling that her life didn’t sound quite so bad.

She wasn’t always packing or unpacking. She was never jet-lagged. She never had to buy a phone charger she already had because she’d forgotten the original thousands of miles away.

I had mentioned all of this to Jesse.

“Do you ever just want to go home?” I said.

“We are home,” he’d said to me.

“No, home home. To Acton home.”

Jesse looked at me suspiciously and said, “You must be an impostor. Because the real Emma would never say that.”

I laughed and let it go.

But I wasn’t actually letting it go. Case in point: If Jesse and I were going to have children, were we still going to be hopping on a quick flight to Peru? And maybe more important: Was I ready to raise children in Los Angeles?

The very moment these questions occurred to me, I started to realize that my life plans had never really extended past my twenties. I had never asked myself if I always wanted to be traveling, if I always wanted to live so far from my parents.

I began to suspect that this jet-setting Jesse and I had been living had always felt temporary to me, like something I knew I needed to do and then one day would be over.

I think that I wanted to settle down one day.

And the only thing that shocked me more than realizing it was realizing I had never realized it before.

Of course, it did not help matters that I was pretty sure Jesse hadn’t been thinking any of this. I was pretty sure Jesse wasn’t thinking this at all.

We had created a life of spontaneous adventure. Of seeing all the things people say one day they will see.

I couldn’t very well change the entire modus operandi of our lives.

So even though I wanted him to skip Alaska and go to Southern California with me, I told him to go.

And he was right. I’d already seen a glacier. But he hadn’t.

So—instead of preparing to celebrate our one-year wedding anniversary—I was driving Jesse to LAX so that he could hop on a flight to Anchorage.

“We’ll celebrate our anniversary when I get home,” he said. “I’m gonna go all out. Candles, wine, flowers. I’ll even serenade you. And I’ll call you tomorrow.”

He was meeting the rest of the crew in Anchorage and then getting on a private plane, landing in Akun Island. Most of the time after that, he’d be filming aerial shots from a helicopter.

“Don’t stress out about it,” I said. “If you can’t call, I totally get it.”

“Thank you,” he said as he gathered his bags and looked at me. “I love you more than anyone has ever loved anyone in the history of the world. Do you know that? Do you know that Antony didn’t love Cleopatra as much as I love you? Do you know that Romeo didn’t love Juliet as much as I love you?”

I laughed. “I love you, too,” I said. “More than Liz Taylor loved Richard Burton.”

Jesse came around the side of the car and stood at my window.

“Wow,” he said, smiling. “That’s a lot.”

“All right. Get out of here, would you? I have errands to run.”

Jesse laughed and kissed me good-bye. And then I watched him walk in front of our car through the automatic doors, into the belly of Los Angeles International Airport.

Just then, my favorite song came on the radio. I turned up the volume, sang at the top of my lungs, and pulled the car away from the curb.

As I navigated the streets back home, Jesse texted me.