There were moments when a map beckoned to him — this or that spot as yet unexplored. But for the first time in his life, Randolph did not feel excitement at the possibility of the unknown. At first he had not known what to call it — caution, a wariness, trepidation? But, he realized, with a sudden and shameful understanding, this was nothing more than fear. When he recalled his travels now, instead of thinking of them fondly as he once had, he found himself cataloguing the risks he had taken, all the tiny ways in which he’d been so lucky that he felt sure he must have used it all up. In such a new place, he thought, he wouldn’t know how to save himself should the situation arise. He would not again be so fortunate. And so, each day, it felt reassuring to travel no farther than his study where, surrounded by his own memorabilia, he could recall his more adventurous days.
The editors of the Nicolet Herald-Gleaner, more than a little surprised to learn that there had been a Nicolet connection to one of the most significant natural disasters in recent decades, printed a long piece about Randolph’s narrow escape. Randolph had not wanted to be interviewed, and so had asked Rose to speak to them instead.
Rose, for her part, found herself dominating the news cycle as coverage of the mayoral race began to increase. It was looking good for Rose, her campaign team assured her, though in the world of local politics, they reminded her, things could change dramatically in the months leading up to an election. And still there was the matter of the electorate’s discomfort with her strange marital arrangement, her campaign advisors reminded her. Still, there was the matter of that for her to contend with. But now, even more so than before, it was a conversation she could not imagine having with Randolph.
Rose had begun to prepare, to steel herself against the announcement she knew would come soon enough: that he was again leaving. She knew that for the first time in their long marriage, it would be difficult for her not to ask him to stay.
She wanted him to stay. To unpack, to put away his boots and his travel guides and his journals for good. Not because of her political ambitions, not this time, but rather because she wanted the luxury of taking him for granted. The banal daily interactions over schedules and groceries had begun, to Rose, to feel almost sacred, full of meaning and intention and reverence.
She thought of the farm families she had grown up with and of her own parents, her farmer’s upbringing — the notion that the harder a thing was to do, the more worth doing, the more valuable. And what, she had begun to think, could be more challenging than to go on loving someone through so many grim daily routines? To love one another not through absence and letters and joyful returns, but through snow shoveling, and meals together one after another, and bills pored over at the kitchen table. Through no longer the electric thrill of brushing against one another in the hallway or the kitchen, but instead through the possibility of growing so familiar that it sometimes felt impossible to still see one another. What love, to still love one another through that.
As Rose prepared dinner, Lily sat at the kitchen table, poring over her schoolwork, and Rose thought of how, at Lily’s age, she had been just a few years from running off with Randolph, from taking flight from this farm town where she’d been raised. Now, here she was, perhaps about to become mayor of this town, though it had grown so different as to be hardly recognizable were it not for a few familiar landmarks — the granary along the railroad tracks just off Main Street, where bistros and coffee houses had begun to take up residence; here and there a silo in one of the fields that frayed off at the edges of town, not yet developed, not yet transformed into still more and more houses.
And here she was, also, quiet evenings at home with her husband, beginning to fall in love with the idea of a marriage that looked less like the grand love story she had always envisioned and more like the quiet, committed, humble marriages of the farm couples she’d grown up surrounded by and had vowed to be nothing like. Now, though, she could see the dignity in those relationships — the simple bravery of staying together through routine and hardship, through overwork and fatigue. She felt ashamed that she had ever been so dismissive. How little she’d known of life then. How little Lily knew, she thought, as she watched her daughter, bent over her schoolwork at the kitchen table.
And so Rose was surprised, one evening, when Randolph, home then for just over a month, made his way into the dining room where she was working on her campaign literature. “Rose,” he began. “I’ve been thinking.”
She looked up, recognizing his tone as the sort that indicates a conversation deserving of one’s full attention. Here was the moment she had steeled herself for.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said again, “that it may be time for me to take a break.” Lately, he explained, he had found himself thinking about a book project — photos and text, maps of his journeys, suggested routes, helpful tips for other intrepid explorers. “I’d like to be home,” he said. “For a good long while this time.”
At first, Rose said nothing. She watched him for signs that he might have known what she had considered asking, that he might have known about the many unsent letters she had drafted before—
She stopped herself from thinking of it, as she always did.
“Is this because of my political aspirations?” she asked, finally.
Randolph took a seat in one of the chairs beside her at the glossy dining room table. “Not at all,” he said, confused by the question. For his part, he was wondering if Rose could sense the fear that had grown in him. He hoped not. He was ashamed of it. He held his hand out to her. “Just a good time to begin a book, I think.”
Rose took his hand, but rather than feeling pleased or relieved, she found herself feeling both guilty — that just like that, she’d been delivered from having to ask him something she had so thoroughly dreaded — and relieved — that he would be here with her, with Lily.
Lily, coming down the stairs in search of a snack for her study break, had found them, her mother, strangely, sitting on her father’s lap like a child, their foreheads resting together, eyes only for each other.
“I’ve decided to take a bit of a respite from my travels,” Randolph explained to Lily that night over dinner. Lily was slowly growing accustomed to her father’s presence each evening at the table, each morning at breakfast. Rose folded her napkin and set it beside her plate, feeling certain she knew what was coming.
Lily looked across the table at her mother, suspicious. “Why?” she asked.
What to say, Randolph wondered. Would he tell her all of the ways in which he’d felt himself growing fearful?
“I almost lost you both,” he said, finally, looking down at the table. “And I’ve been thinking about what’s most important to me.”