My Husband's Mistress

In the past month, I have traveled a lot – to the point where everything I own is in a 3 oz container and I’ve spent a week in every time zone in the Lower 48. On only one of these trips did Mark and I go together. So our seventh month of marriage has been a lot of phone calls and happy reunions. And while I’m away, he reverts to his bachelor mode a bit – bratwurst and scrambled eggs for dinner, staying late at the office, spending a lot of time fixing up Mazurka.

On my last trip away – to Jill’s baby shower in Detroit – I spent five days with Mark’s family, without my husband. We talked morning and night, mostly about how he was getting the boat ready for me to come home. He took the plastic shrinkwrap off, scrubbed and buffed and waxed the deck, put up the bimony he repaired, stowed winter gear like space heaters. On Sunday morning when I called he was drilling holes. “I’m working on the sink that doesn’t drain,” he explained. “What sink?” I asked, since to my knowledge, there were no problems (yet) with any of the sinks. “You know, that one in the kitchen that doesn’t drain – the thing that always stops the water.” “You mean the dish strainer?” “Yeah – that – I’m drilling holes in the bottom.”

I was flattered he missed me so much he was drilling holes in Rubbermaid.

When I returned Tuesday afternoon, Mazurka looked beautiful. Mark came home from work, and after the big kiss and hug, showed me two small bags holding gold. “Here they are,” he said, waving the two couplings in front me – the pieces he had been waiting for to fix the generator.

We went for a walk, came home and made dinner, and talked about what would happen if we moved somewhere else, whether or not we would live on Mazurka. After a week with family and babies and houses, I was in a different frame of mind. You can’t have a baby crawling around in the salon, and where do you put a crib – on the fly bridge? But even without the idea of a family on board, I was growing tired of the constant maintenance. People sometimes tell me, “Oh, living on a boat – you must be saving a lot of money.” These people have no idea what they’re talking about.

“One thing for sure,” Mark said, with love in his eyes, “she needs to be in the water. She can’t survive if she’s not in the water.”

Around 8:30 Mark started to get the look that washes right over me as if I’m not there – the Fixing Mazurka look. At ten o’clock, I kissed him down in the engine room and went to bed. At eleven, several unsuccessful attempts to start the generator woke me up. I went to the door. “Mark,” I said, “I haven’t been home in a week. Can’t you come to bed now?”

“I almost got it…” he called.

I closed the doors to the stateroom and went back to bed, little devils scurrying in my mind, planting seeds of "He doesn’t really love you, he loves the boat. He didn’t miss you at all – he just wants to be alone with his boat." I didn’t give in and didn’t pout or start an argument – and in a while Mark came to bed, put his arm around me and promptly started snoring.

My biggest fear moving on board Mazurka was that I would be living on a project. And truly, that’s what this is – it’s Mark’s epic. And he loves it. He loves solving problems, he loves the challenge. The generator is almost fixed (he was up early and had it running before work today), but lately the water pump has been sounding strange and that’ll be the next thing to go. It’s probably time to fix the toilets before we bring my parents onboard for a Father’s Day voyage. We triumph over winter only to get the problems of summer. It’s the same reason I write – I hate the challenge as much as I love it, and as much as I complain and stress out about a piece that’s not coming together, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Mark respects my writing more than I do - I should at least show him the same reverence for his beloved projects.

Last night as I lay in bed alone, I had to remind myself why I do like living on board – because it’s the most creatively stimulating thing I’ve ever done. Everything is in chaos – the unexpected can happen at any moment, nothing is ever guaranteed, and there are constant reminders that it’s only through the grace of God that the whole thing doesn’t just sink.

But the best moment of all – and after six months of being tied to this dock we’re dying for it – is the moment you take up the lines and push off. Suddenly you feel a different pull: The pull of water, the pull of a story – you forget that you were ever tied to land; you forget there was ever a time you weren’t free.