The Backpacking Housewife: The Next Adventure

Ethan’s parents died a long time ago and, from what I can gather, he was still in his teens at the time. I don’t know exactly what or how it happened. But they do seem to have passed away at around the same time as each other. I wonder if they were in some kind of accident.

Only, he doesn’t talk about them very much. Maybe it’s too painful for him?

It’s also entirely understandable that he is perhaps unable to truly empathise with me and all my worries over my two sons or an aging parent. Although, with his roots in Scotland, I find it hard to accept there isn’t at least someone somewhere in the world who is related to him.

An uncle twice removed or even perhaps a distant cousin?

When we had briefly talked about it once, I’d suggested doing a bit of genealogy research to check for anyone who might be a relative, or even a black sheep in his clan. But then I’d noticed a vein in his temple starting to visibly pulsate and how quickly he changed the subject.

A shout disrupts my thoughts and I turn around to see Ethan on deck.

‘Lori! I have news. I have great news!’

A smile spreads across my face. I watch him in amusement as he struts his stuff, wiggling his hips and dancing through the early morning sunbeams and across the main deck towards me, wearing an unbuttoned shirt and baggy khaki shorts, while waving his satellite phone in the air. I laugh. I do love his boundless energy and passion.

Ethan has the heart of a lion, but he extrudes all the enthusiasm of a child.

I mean, just yesterday, as we sailed past the island of St Martin, he was positively whooping about a pilot whale and her calf swimming off our bow. Last week, he sounded the muster alarm when he spotted a record number of dolphins following in our wake. And, last month, when our research vessel Freedom of the Ocean rallied on a conservational issue off the coast of Costa Rica to stop illegal shark finning, he stood out on deck beating his chest like Tarzan.

But I have perhaps not seen him quite as exuberant as he is today.

Several of the crew whoop loudly in response, as I wait to hear what crazy escapade he might have conjured up for us next. Life with Ethan is always an adventure and to my certain knowledge every one of those adventures has been the result of a phone call.

‘My darling, I believe I’ve found us a piece of dry land that we can finally call home.’

I catch my breath and my heart skips a beat. His words wash over me through the warm and salty air between us. Did I hear him correctly? Did Ethan Goldman, nomadic eco-warrior and king of the seven seas, just say dry land and home in the very same sentence?

Had he really been listening to my worldly woes?

To my worries about my family and how much I miss them?

Had he really understood and been putting together a plan for when we got back here?

‘Really? Oh Ethan, that’s fantastic! Where is it?’ I gasp.

‘Here. In the BVI’s. Although I’ll have to head over to Grand Cayman to sign the lease.’

‘Here, in the British Virgin Islands? A lease? Are we renting a house?’

My brain clicked into overdrive. Is this plan of his both the answer and the compromise?

The resolution to the conflict in my double life?

A base for us to work from and for us to call home?

Only moments earlier, I’d been imagining a heartbreaking and distressing scenario, where I was sobbing into Ethan’s pineapple patterned shirt and saying goodbye to him this afternoon.

I had imagined that the very next phone call he took would be the catalyst to him taking off on some new and fabulous adventure and that he’d have to go saving something somewhere in the world without me. But now, instead, I’m suddenly and happily conjuring up in my imagination a traditional clapperboard Caribbean style house, surrounded by palm trees, either here on Tortola or Virgin Gorda. I’m imagining myself holding out my arms in welcome to my family as they arrive to spend Christmas with us this year. And, next year, planning with them a visit over the summer holidays and lots of other special family times too. I imagined my mum sitting on a comfortable chair under our shaded porch, looking out at a beautiful tropical garden, rather than sitting in an old armchair in front of the fire and looking outside at her small winter ravaged patio. I imagined Ethan teaching Josh and Lucas to scuba dive in the warm sea and them all having an amazing time together.

That’s my dream – a big happy family – all spending quality time together.

And, when my mum and my two boys step off a plane into my new world – and they see for themselves what kind of life I’m living and what kind of man I’m living with now – then they can be happy for me at last. Then they wouldn’t worry about me so much. Or continue to question my state of mind. And demand, in every long-distance conversation, that it’s time I came home. What a perfect way that would be for me to introduce them to Ethan too.

Part of my angst and guilt is because I haven’t yet told them I have a new man in my life.

I’ve only explained about going off with a new friend to do some conservation work.

I certainly hadn’t told them how I’d met a gorgeous man in Thailand, fallen head over heels in love with him, and that we were now travelling all over the world together.

I don’t feel it’s the kind of news that’s best shared in an email or a message.

Although, I’m sure, if they ever did manage to get over the shock of me having a new man friend, then they would be impressed that he’s a renowned environmentalist and the founder and CEO of The Goldman Global Foundation. And, when my mum eventually picked herself up off the floor at the thought of me having another man in my life, she might be thrilled to hear that Sir Ethan had been knighted for his services to global ecology and endangered animal conservation.

Right now, I’m excited. I find Ethan’s idea of a renting somewhere entirely acceptable.

Although, it is certainly a little unusual – simply because as a rule Ethan doesn’t rent – Ethan buys. Probably because he can afford to buy anything he wants. Like this ship, for example.

While many fifty-year old men might choose to buy a classic motorbike or a flashy car, this middle-aged philanthropist prefers to spend his small change on a state-of-the-art fully equipped ocean liner, with the world’s most advanced gadgetry and marine research facilities on board. But renting a house will be far quicker than buying one.

We might even be able to move in today!

‘It’s not a house,’ Ethan tells me with great gusto. ‘It’s an island no one has lived on in a hundred years!’

And, suddenly, I can feel my elated heart sinking ever so slowly down into my deck shoes.

The image of an idyllic Caribbean colonial style house with my mum on the porch immediately crumbles away to be replaced by something far less decant and far more decayed looking. I sigh and take a deep breath. I do love that he cares so passionately about preserving ecosystems and saving the endangered creatures of the world. But after eight months spent mostly at sea, and while working on the most pressing conservational issues in the world today - that of plastic pollution in our seas and the study of global warming on our oceans – what I really meant when I’d tentatively hinted to him that we might settle down and find a home together, was somewhere with an actual address.

I’d thought we might live in a place that can be found without satellite imaging or having to use longitude and latitude coordinates. Somewhere civilised with a population and civil amenities and a transportation system that includes an international airport and not just a precarious landing strip. Somewhere with shops. A supermarket where I can buy milk that doesn’t necessarily have to come from a coconut. A house with a proper kitchen rather than a galley with a floating stove. A bathroom with a tub instead of a tiny shower and with a proper toilet rather than one in a tiny claustrophobic cubicle like the kind you find on an airplane.

Was I expecting too much? I guess so. This was Ethan Indiana Jones after all.

Because now I fear he has another adventurous project in mind rather than an actual home.

On an island that no one has lived on in a hundred years no less!

But was that even possible these days in the BVIs?

Jeff, one of our marine biologists, laughed. ‘You’ve gotta admit it, Lori. This is so Ethan!’

So Ethan had become a popular adage with all the scientists onboard for when anyone had a crazy idea. Never crazy to Ethan, of course, who was still enthusiastically strutting his stuff on deck. I roll my eyes as I consider yet another desert island where we can live like castaways.

I know how cynical and ungrateful that sounds, but I’m kind of fed up with shifting sand.

I’m missing solid ground. I’m missing being in one place for a while.

But more than all of that I’m really missing my family.

Chapter 2 (#u4a61c14c-d8e0-5a0d-b3bd-93bbf1e7c16f)