It was the first Saturday of the new year and we’d just finished taking down the Christmas tree and all the decorations.  The living room felt bare and bigger without the tree and the lights and the presents scattered underneath and the figurines on the mantle.  It had been a very good Christmas, only our second together and our first as husband and wife.   She’d surprised me last Christmas with her deep and unapologetic love for everything to do with Christmas, but I was unprepared for the level of planning and detail that went into the tree.  The acquisition of the tree, the proper placement of the tree, and holy Mother of God, the decorating of the tree – all of it had rules and rights and wrongs that I clearly needed to learn.  She had been collecting ornaments for years and had 3 paper boxes full, not including the garland and the lights and the tinsel.  Yep, last year was my initiation into the wonderful and slightly warped Beesly Christmas tree production. 

~~~~

     First, she made a date with me to go and get the tree.  We’d had dinner first, during which she expounded in detail on what makes a great Christmas tree, favorite trees of her childhood, the tree that fell over on her when she was nine, and how sad it is when you have to “undress” the tree and haul it out to the curb.  Following dinner came the whole ordeal of picking out the tree.  It had to be the right shape, the right height, and according to her, have the right personality.  I tried to see it, the tree’s personality.  I really did try, but not having her artistic eye and slightly twisted mind, I just couldn’t.  The only thing I saw, and the thing I can still see, is her face.  Lit up by her own giddiness and the overhead lights in the parking lot of the little ice cream stand, boarded up for the winter, her cheeks pink from the cold, I thought she’d never looked prettier.  I can still hear the salesman standing there with two trees, a hand around the trunk of each saying, “‘come on, sweetheart, Christmas is only ten days away!'”  So she asked me to break the tie between Taller and Fuller.  I picked Taller and told her it was because the tree had a jaunty personality, and she agreed, saying it reminded her of me.  That was a Friday. 

     On Saturday, I came home from playing basketball to find the living room transformed and the sweet smell of apples and cinnamon and cloves drifting in from the kitchen.  She’d strung tiny white lights along the mantle, Christmas music (Johnny Mathis, because it was her dad’s favorite) was softly playing, and she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by Dunder Mifflin paper boxes, untangling a string of blinking lights.  She scrambled to her feet to kiss me and literally bounced into the kitchen to pour me a glass of mulled cider and sent me off to shower with an admonition to hurry and come back and help her with the tree. 

     “Unwrapping the ornaments is just like unwrapping gifts!” she told me.  Her fingers delicately pulled the tissue paper off each little bundle she extracted from the box as I watched her.  Each ornament had a story and at least ten of them were her “all-time, absolute favorites.“  I was her designated ornament hanger, standing and waiting for her to hand me each one from her spot on the floor and directing me to its “home” on the tree.  Satisfied that I’d followed instructions and that each one looked “happy” to be in its rightful place, she’d reach into the box for the next one, saying ‘oh, I love this one!’ or ‘oh, I forgot about this one!’ until the tree was completely covered.  We hung the tinsel together, one piece at a time, as is required in the Beesly Guide to Trimming Your Tree.

     No matter how many Christmases we have together, I’ll never forget that first one.  After finishing the tree, I curled up with her on the couch, the living room dark except for the lights of the tree, her head nestled into my neck.  The music ended and our conversation quieted, and we sat in silence for a long time.  I don’t know if I can explain how I felt that night.  So happy, so content, but that wasn’t all.  I felt complete; I couldn’t imagine a single thing I could wish for or want that could make me any happier than I was at that moment.  I guess I’m just a big, soft-hearted fool, because I didn’t even move to stop the one huge tear from rolling down my cheek to my jaw, and landing softly in her hair.   

     And that was our first Christmas together.  I proposed the following Valentine’s Day and we were married in late April, in her parents’ backyard, neither one of us wanting a long engagement or a bunch of fuss.  This Christmas, being well-acquainted with her tree and ornament fetish, I bought her one of those semi-cheesy “First Christmas” ornaments from the Hallmark store and surprised her with it early, as we’d decorated the tree.  Instead of wrapping it and placing it under the tree, I crinkled up some tissue paper, swaddled the ornament with it, and nestled it in with all the others in one of the three boxes marked ORNAMENTS in the attic.  When she unwrapped it, I watched her face go from confused to delighted to sentimentally weepy in under five seconds.  She loved it, of course, and hung that one herself, at her eye level.  She asked for more cider and when I returned from the kitchen, she handed me another ornament:  a tiny pair of knitted white baby booties.  And no matter how many Christmases we have, I’ll always remember the second one because she gave me something I didn’t even know I was wishing for.

~~~~

     On my way back into the house after depositing the naked Christmas tree on the curb, I grabbed the mail out of the mailbox.  Compared to the pre-Christmas glut of ads and credit card offers, the day’s mail was light.  I sifted through it and found Pam’s grade card from the fall semester.  She’d taken two classes and with the holidays, her time had been limited and her stress level had gone through the roof.  She was always relieved to finish a semester, but she nearly collapsed at the end of this one.  No doubt, the early days of pregnancy had sapped her energy.  She’d fallen asleep at her desk at work more than once and she dozed in bed in the morning until the last possible minute, when I’d have to shag her into the shower after I handed her a cup of tea. 

“Your grade card came in the mail,” I called upstairs.

“Bring it up!  I’m in the tub!”

I opened the door to the bathroom and found her sitting in the tub, covered in bubbles with her hair twisted up in a knot, reading a book on healthy pregnancy.

“I thought the doctor said no baths for you, Pam.”

“It’s not hot, don’t worry.  I need to shave my legs and I just wanted to relax for a few minutes.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure!  Here, feel the water.”

     I reached my hand down into the tub and took the opportunity to slide my hand up along her thigh, grabbing a handful of bubbles along the way and plopping them on top of her head.  She grinned up at me like a little kid.

“See?  Not hot,” she said.

“How’s the book?” I asked her.

“Ugh, Jim, pregnancy is disgusting.  Did you know there is something called a ‘mucous plug’?  And I’m going to have one!  A mucous.  Plug.  Yeeechhh.  Nobody told me about this.”

“Open your grade card.  Let’s have some happy thoughts here.”

     I took the book from her, holding her place, and handed her the grade card.  She carefully folded over all the perforated edges and peeled them away, handing them to me one by one.  Her face was expectant; I knew she was hoping for two more As to add to her collection.  I watched as her face went a little dark and the corners of her mouth turned down.

     I didn’t ask, but she told me.  “Two Bs.  I can’t believe it!  Well, I guess I’m not too surprised about the portraiture class.  That’s just not my strong suit.  But the mixed media class, wow.  I thought I’d done great work in that class!  He must have hated my final project.”

“I thought it was great,” I told her.  “Why don’t you give him a call and talk to him?  Get some feedback.”

“Yeah. I need to pick up my final project, anyway, so I’ll go see him on Monday and talk to him.”

“Want your book back?”

“No.   I’m going to get out in a minute or two.  Plus, mucous plug.  I’m still reeling.” 

“Yeah.  Where do you get this plug? And couldn’t they think of a better name?”

“Right?  The plug forms right where you think it might, Jim.”

“Like a cork on a bottle of wine?”

“Or like a drain stopper in a sink.”

“I guess the baby stays juicier while it’s cooking with the plug, huh?”

“Ugh. Thank you, but I’m not cooking a baby here.”

“Why do people say “bun in the oven” then?”

“Because people are stupid, Jim.  Babies make people stupid…that’s it!  I’m blaming my bad grades on the baby.”

“A, those are not bad grades, and 2, of course, the baby is responsible.  Junior’s already causing trouble.”

“Takes after you.”

“Please.  Pam, you wound me.”

“I’m sorry, Jim, but the baby’s making me mouthy, too.”

“Oh, don’t think you’re going to get away with that for nine months.  Whipping out the baby card.”

“It was worth a shot.  Leave me be so I can shave my legs.  I’ll be down in a little bit.”

     I leaned over to kiss her before I left her in peace and she put bubbles in my hair and flicked water on my face. 

     I surfed through channels on the TV and waited for her to come downstairs for nearly an hour, but after hearing the tub drain, I didn’t hear a single sound from the bedroom.  I called her cell phone, which I knew was on the nightstand, and she picked up, laughing.

“Baby’s making you stupid, too, Halpert.”

“What are you doing up there?”

“Holding a wake for my body that’s about to be terrorized by pregnancy.  Making a mucous plug.  Moping about my grades.  Other general...mope-age.  Trying to draw something and not succeeding. You don’t want to watch this.”

“Okay.  Hey, how long is that going to take?  Because I’m ordering a pizza.  Should I leave it outside the bedroom door or will you be done moping by the time it gets here?”

“Depends.  What’s on the pizza?”

“Mushrooms, pepperoni, black olives.”

“Hmmm…that might cure The Mope.”

“Good.  Get down here.  I’ll mope with you a little if you want.”

“You’re so not a moper.  I’ve never seen you mope.”

“I have you and you’re making me a baby.  I have nothing to mope about.”

“Not yet, you don’t.  I have more news on the mucous plug.”

“Go.”

“Jim, are you sitting down?”  I can hear her footsteps in the hall above my head.

“Yes…sitting.”  I hear her coming down the stairs.

“Well, at some point before the baby comes…are you ready for this?...I lose the mucous plug.  That’s a direct quote.” 

     She’s standing at the bottom of the stairs with the cell phone tucked between her shoulder and her chin, doing finger quotes and saying, “I ‘lose’ the plug.”

     She’s wearing these crazy pants we call her “party pants” and a tank top with the words “Don’t mess with me or you won’t get no goodies!” across her breasts with just the tiniest hint of her growing belly showing between top and pants and her hair is all wild around her shoulders and her glasses are halfway down her nose and I think to myself for maybe the millionth time...she’s never looked more beautiful.  We both close our phones.

“So, like, am I going to be just going about my business, walking down the street or doing the dishes or something and the plug is going to come flying out like a champagne cork and then I’m going to have to root around looking for it, or what?”

“I’ll help you find it.”

“Great, Jim.  That’s just great.  Wow, who knew this whole business was going to be so…disgusting?”

     I pull her down onto my lap and nuzzle her neck, breathing in her sweet smell and nibbling a little, rubbing my beard on her to tickle her.

“It’s not disgusting, Pam.  It’s going to be great.  You’re going to be great.”

“Yeah, I haven’t told you what’s going to happen to my belly button yet.”

“I can’t wait.”

     I’m staring at this blank piece of paper and I hate it.  It’s number eight.  Numbers one through seven are balled up on the floor behind my chair, and it’s like they’re staring at the back of my head, snickering at  me.  I’m having no luck at all with the pastels, so I grab one of the beautiful Progresso pencils – black - Jim got me for Christmas and make a few strokes.  This might work better, I think, and I can shade with powdered graphite.  I’m working from a photograph of his father’s hands and it's the first in a series I think I want to do.  His parents’, my parents’, ours, and finally, when Junior makes his appearance, the baby’s hands.  The paper is small – 5 X 7 – so every stroke needs to be fairly precise.  I wonder why I’m torturing myself with this project right now.  I haven’t produced anything of any sort of quality since the end of last semester, and drawing a series of hands is no way to get my confidence back.

~~~ 

     The Monday after I got my grade card, I left work at 3:00 and drove over to school to pick up my final project and talk with Dr. Jennings.  Actively seeking feedback about my stuff was something I’d never done before and I was dreading it.  At the same time, I knew Jim was right - why else was I going to school?  Unfortunately, that morning I was hit with the worst bout of morning sickness I’d had so far and I’d thrown up in a spectacular fashion.  I vowed to follow my mother’s advice and keep some Saltines on the nightstand to munch before I got out of bed.  Originally, I thought it was kind of revolting to eat Saltines before I even brushed my teeth, but Saltines sounded a hell of a lot better than what happened this morning.  So while I waited around for my stomach to settle (puking in your professor’s office – not a good idea) I had time to agonize over what he might say.  Sure, B level work is fine.  It’s above average, but it wasn’t excellent and I wanted to find out why.

     I stood outside Jennings’ door for a second before knocking.  The door was open a crack and I could see him sitting and staring out the arched window in the dormer that formed the back wall of his office.  I liked Dr. Jennings.  He was older, in his sixties, and had a fairly successful career outside of teaching; he’d written a few books on art and teaching art, and had a few one-man shows locally, and one in Philadelphia, years ago.  When he’d introduced himself on the first day of class, he referred to himself as a solid minor leaguer.  Someone who played for the love of the sport and but for luck and life getting in the way, had never made it to the majors.  I liked that he was so humble about his work.  I liked that his approach to art was as a journeyman, despite his years of experience, and that he stressed skill rather than talent.  “Skill is something you can acquire through practice,” he’d told the class.  “Talent is only one part of the equation…there is no excuse for not honing your skills.”  I liked that idea because I really didn’t think I had a lot of natural talent, but I did have a willingness to practice, to improve, and to work hard at it.

“Dr. Jennings?” I said, as I knocked. 

“Oh!  Pam!  Come on in.  I was just sitting here daydreaming.  Nice day for that, eh?  All cloudy and gray and ready to start snowing any minute.”

“It is a good day for that,” I agreed.  He seemed far away to me, melancholy. 

“I suppose you’re here to pick up your final project?”

“Yes, I am.  And I wanted to...ask your thoughts on it.  I was hoping to get an A in your class and I thought...well, I was a little surprised to see a B on my grade card.”

“A B is a very good grade, Pam.  You did very good work in the class.”

“Thank you.  I can’t help but think you didn’t like my final project very much, though.”

“Oh, no!  I think it was fine work.”

“But not excellent work.”

“Pam, all semester long, your work had so much emotion in it.  Even if it wasn’t the most technically sophisticated work, I always felt what you created was fresh and honest and that you'd put a piece of your heart in it.”

“And this last project?”

“Probably your best stuff, technically speaking.  Your skills really improved over the course of the class, especially what you did with charcoal.”

“But…?”

“It felt empty to me, Pam.  I felt like you were trying hard to show off the skill you had, but you forgot to convey feeling, emotion.  I got the feeling you were distracted when you worked on this.”

“Well, I guess maybe I was.  I have a lot going on right now.  My husband and I were busy with the holidays and family and…I found out we’re expecting our first baby.”

“Wonderful!  Congratulations!”

“Thank you!  We’re very excited, and I can see what you’re saying about the distraction.  I don’t think I was completely focused on this piece.  I’m glad you think I improved, though.”

“Very much so.” 

     He paused and looked out the window again and when he turned back to me, his eyes were sad and his hand moved over his mouth as though he wanted to trap his words there.

“Do you plan on continuing with your classes now that you’re expecting?”

“Yes, I do.  I don’t think I’ll do two classes at the same time again, because it was difficult and I think my work in both classes suffered because I was spreading myself too thin.”

“And what do you hope to do with your education?”

“I’m not sure, really.  Realistically, I don’t think I’ll be having my own show anywhere!  But I want to get better and maybe get a job in graphic design.”

“Pam, let me tell you something.  If you’re serious about a career in graphic design, know that it can be very demanding and you’d be competing against younger college grads, fresh out of school.  Kids who are hungry and ambitious and willing to put in long hours.  How are you going to manage that when your family is just starting?”

“Well, I…”

“Pam, when my career was just starting to take off, my wife was pregnant with our third child and I was miserable.  I was constantly torn between my responsibilities to my family and the demands of my career.  I couldn’t be happy in either place because I was feeling guilty about not being in the other. In the end, my career suffered because of it and ultimately, my marriage did, too, because I was bitter about the opportunities I’d lost.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Jennings.  But my husband says…”

“I’m sure he’s very supportive and I don’t mean to dissuade you at all!  I just think you should be honest with yourself about what you can reasonably achieve, given the demands you have elsewhere in your life.”

“Yes.  Okay.  I’ll think about what you’ve said, Dr. Jennings.  Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Pam.  Could you close the door, please?”

     I nearly stumbled out into the hallway.  I felt dizzy and I knew I’d gone too long without eating, and I felt hot and…angry.  And disillusioned.  I felt like a failure. 

     I took the elevator down to the first floor and hurried to the cafeteria.  I bought a yogurt and a banana and sat at a small table by the window.  Had I just been told that I was too old to have a career in art?  Or was I going nowhere fast because I was having a baby?  Was he just a bitter old man without a family or a career?  Probably, but I reflected on how I’d felt last semester, working full-time, taking care of the house, trying to squeeze at least an hour out of each day to work on my projects.  I hadn't been miserable, but I had felt guilty occasionally.  Sometimes, because I felt like I'd been ignoring Jim, or because I worked on art projects at work when I should have been doing Dunder Mifflin stuff, or when I spent half of a Saturday just zoning out in front of the TV because I was exhausted.  And now there was a baby coming.  How in the world was this going to work?

     Jim was a huge help, I couldn’t ask for anything more from him.  He wanted me to finish my education as much as I did, maybe more.  How could I be a good wife, a good mother, a good employee and a good student all at the same time?  I already felt a little overwhelmed; there just weren’t enough hours in the day. I knew my hormones were raging and having a field day in my body, so I tried to take a deep breath, but still, a few tears escaped and I wiped them away with my napkin.  I envisioned myself running from one thing to the next with a baby on my hip and mountains of laundry piled up everywhere and Jim looking sad because he never saw me anymore.  Jim and I were at our best when we had time to spend together, and when our schedules pulled us apart, we bickered more over stupid things and talked to each other less.  I didn’t want that to happen.  We needed our time together.

     My dizziness had faded and I got up to leave the cafeteria.  I just wanted to be home.  I wanted to go home and curl up into a ball in bed and make the world go away.  Maybe Jennings was just a bitter old man, disappointed with his life and his career.  But there had been some truth in his words and I couldn’t deny that. I couldn’t help thinking about the ten years I now felt that I’d wasted with Roy.  Ten years I would never get back.  

     Just like that, I felt a little of my optimism for the future draining away.  I tried to stop it, I tried to turn off the thoughts in my head.  We were having a baby and I should be feeling excited and full of good thoughts for the future, but all of a sudden, the future seemed murky and I was losing that direct path through the fog.  The only thing I could think of was...taking a break.  On the way home in the car, as the sky turned white and huge flakes of snow fell all around, I decided not to take any classes in the spring.  I just needed a break.

~~~

     Numbers eight, nine, and ten have joined their friends on the floor around my chair and I’ve given up.  I straighten the table up, returning my pencils to the old coffee mug and the charcoal to its wicker basket and I close the door to the "art room."  The late afternoon light is fading and I think that February's dusk is the loneliest light of all.  It’s that bleak time of the year when I’ve had all the cold and snow and darkness I can take, when I’ve almost forgotten about spring and daylight savings time and crocuses and bare arms and legs.  I know that by the time the summer reaches its peak in August, I will be hugely pregnant, and I think we could have planned that a little better.  Maybe next time, I think, rubbing my hands in circles over my belly. 

     He’ll be home soon, hair soaked with sweat, cheeks flushed from the game and the cold air.  He’ll be a little keyed up and talking too loud and he’ll grab a beer from the fridge and kiss me.  Then he’ll kiss my belly and say something completely silly and totally random directly into my belly button, like it's a megaphone into my uterus.  And every day, he's got some new, ridiculous name for the baby.  Yesterday, it was "Meet me on the hill at midnight, Miss Flanders" and the day before it was "I'll take my pipe and slippers now, Roberto." 

    I light candles in the living room, turn on music in the kitchen and start dinner, humming to myself and thinking...this is my sweet life.

     It’s when she tells me that she’s signed up for a woodworking class that I start to think she’s lost her lovely little mind.  She’s signing up for everything!  The Lamaze classes are scheduled, and she’s taking a yoga class for pregnant women.  She’s already finished a knitting class and judging by the volume of stuff rolling off the needles, I think she’s making a cozy for her car.  Every time she’s sitting down, she’s got the needles going a hundred miles a minute, but I’m not teasing her about it because she could do some serious damage with those needles if I piss her off.  She’s joined the book club at the library and she gets the books on CD so she doesn’t have to set her knitting needles down to turn the page.  On the upside, that cooking class was totally worthwhile.  For a few weeks, I was eating like a king and we’ve got enough freaking gumbo in the freezer to feed Emeril’s studio audience.  The pottery class, on the other hand, was a bit of a bust, but I do have the world’s most lopsided coffee mug to show for it. It holds about a quart of coffee and has the word HOT painted on the side in bright red paint.  “HOT”, she tells me, refers to me, the coffee, and serves as a warning to the baby, who will apparently be a genius who reads before the age of 1.  But…woodworking?  She tells me she wants to make something for the baby’s room and I think it would be easier if she’d just paint something instead of build something, but I don’t tell her that.

~~

     Just when I think I know her, when I think I’ve seen all her moods and quirks, she changes.  She flits behind a rock like a sunfish; she hides, hovering in the castle, just peering at me, like an angelfish.  I’m trying hard to make conversation, to draw her out, but her guard is up and her mood is down.  I don’t know what’s going on, what she’s hiding.  She doesn’t want to talk about her meeting with her professor, but says that he gave her some good advice and she’s satisfied with her grade now.  I don’t ask anything more.

     Over dinner, we talk a little about an upcoming seminar at work and she laughs a bit when I speculate on Michael’s contribution.  Then… silence.  I ask if she turned her grade card in to Angela for reimbursement on her tuition.  She says yes, she did, and she apologizes because we’ll only get a percentage back, not the 100% we would have received if she’d gotten As rather than Bs.  I say it doesn’t matter, I tell her I don’t care about that.  I compliment her on dinner and she thanks me, tells me it was nothing.  I ask her if she’s feeling okay and she says, yeah, but she’s tired.  More silence.  I say, please tell me what’s wrong, I can see something’s bothering you, but she says she’s fine, just tired.  I tell her that I’ll do the dishes, she should go and lie down and she thanks me.  She gets up from the table and before she leaves the kitchen, she leans over my shoulders and wraps her arms around my neck.  She kisses my cheek and says she loves me; she’ll be okay in the morning.

     As I scrape the plates, I see the spring class schedule in the bottom of the garbage can, still open and folded over to the art classes.  I know this much about her: she’ll talk to me when she’s ready and if I push and prod her, sometimes it makes it worse.  I just need to be available.  I just need to be close. 

     I turn the lights out downstairs and head upstairs with a cup of tea.  She’s lying on her side, facing away from me, just the nightlight from the bathroom glowing.  I set her tea down on the nightstand and I see she’s awake.  Awake, dry-eyed, staring at nothing.  I kneel down on the floor beside the bed and kiss her.  I say, everything’s going to be okay and I comb my fingers through her hair.  She nods and says she knows it will.  I tell her I love her and she says nothing but she reaches for my face with both hands and she kisses me, then holds my face to hers, cheek to cheek, for a long time.

“Lay down with me,” she says.

I’m still in my work clothes, but I don’t hesitate. I curl around her back, slide my arm under her head and she reaches for my hand.  I wrap my other arm around her waist and she shifts back against me.  Closer. 

“You’re always so warm,” she says.

“Do you want covers?” I ask her.

“No.  Just you.”

     I hold her and I wait. I kiss her neck and we breathe together.  She puts her feet between my calves and I reposition my legs to warm them.  And I wait.

“The last thing in the world I ever want to do is disappoint you.”

I say, “oh, Pam” and it comes out with a huge rush of air, like a groan.  “You could never, ever…”

“This is everything I ever wanted.  I have you, we’re having a baby.  Isn’t that enough?”

“It’s enough,” I say.  “It’s more than enough for me.”

“Because I just don’t think I can do it all, Jim.  I’m bound to fail at something and there’s too much at stake for me to be trying to do more than I can handle and screwing it all up.”

“Okay, Pam.  Okay.” 

     Her voice has a tiny note of hysteria in it and her body is tense against mine.   I can feel how she’s holding herself in tight.

“No, it’s not okay!  I thought I could do this!  I thought I could have the family and the job and school and do it all.”

“School’s not going to last forever, Pam.  It’s tough right now, I know.”

“I’m taking a break.  There.  I said it.  I’m not registering for any classes this semester.”

“That’s totally fine!  Is that what you’ve been…?”

“I didn’t want you to think I’m giving up.”

“Oh, Pam.”

“I’m not giving up, Jim.  I just need some time off.  I need a break.”

“Pam, it’s okay!  God, you’ve been pushing yourself like crazy.  Two classes last semester…that was insane with everything else going on.  And now, with the baby…”

“I’m so tired, Jim.  Everything feels like a struggle right now.  I know that’s going to change, but…”

“Pam, look at me.”  I push back on her shoulder and she rolls halfway on her back and looks up at me.  She looks…weary.  And scared.

“Everything’s going to be fine.  You’re fine.  You need a break, I agree.”  I feel her relax in my arms, just a little.  “You could never disappoint me.  Why would you ever think that?”  I squeeze her to me and kiss her forehead. 

“From the very beginning…from before the very beginning, you’ve always encouraged me, supported me.  I’ve always loved that about you.  But right now…it feels like…pressure…and…I just can’t do it.”

“Pam, I want you to do what you want to do…not for me.  For yourself!  One of the first things you ever told me was how much you loved to draw.  You said, ‘I love to do illustrations.’”

     Her head comes down into my chest, hard, and she’s sobbing.

     I can’t handle it.  I can’t stand to see her like this…so…fragile, so torn up.  I turn her so she’s facing me and she feels limp as I put my arms all the way around her and she just collapses against me and I rock her and say her name and tell her it’s okay…I love you… Pam… Pam, Pam, it’s okay. 

     Finally, she stops crying, but she’s still hanging on to my shirt and tie with both hands.

“Do you want to wipe your nose on my tie?” 

     She blurts out a laugh and it feels like the sun just came out.  Thank you, God.

“Go ahead.  I’ve got a million of them.  In fact, I hate this one, so go ahead.  Hell, blow if you want.”

     And she laughs harder and says I’m gross.  She can call me anything she wants, as long as she’s talking to me.

“Pam…what happened with your professor?  When you left work, you seemed fine.”

“Yeah.  I really think Dr. Jennings meant well, but…you can’t just say anything to a pregnant lady.  And I can’t tell if it’s what he said, or how I took it, but…I felt like I got punched in the stomach.”

“What the hell did he say?”

“Well, he started by telling me that I’d done good work in his class, so, positive.  Told me my skills had improved.  Again, positive.  But he said my last project didn’t have any heart; that it looked like I was distracted when I did it.  And he’s right, I was distracted!  I was getting ready for the holidays, I had Michael making me crazy, I had my other class to worry about…I should have never taken two classes…big mistake…I was peeing on sticks and freaking out that it wouldn’t be positive, then freaking out because it was.”

“Pam, you’re okay with…?”

“Oh, I’m fine, Jim, I’m thrilled that we’re having a baby.  But then Jennings asked me where I want to go with my education and how demanding that career path is and how the hell am I going to compete with other artists and designers who are younger and more ambitious and don’t have a family tugging at them.”

“What an asshole!  Pam, you…”

“You know, he’s right.  To a certain extent, he’s right.  But all I could think about on the way home was that he wouldn’t have told me all that if he thought I was really good.”

“Pam, you are really…”

“And then all I could think about was how I’ve wanted this for so long and it turns out that I’m not good enough and I’m too old and I should have started sooner and…you know…that dredges up the whole Roy thing and I kick myself again for staying with him for so long and I remember how I thought that that was all I ever I wanted, but it was the wrong thing.  I was wrong about that, too, and now here I am, chasing after something else that’s wrong and I wonder… how long am I going to chase after things that aren’t even right for me?!”

“Jennings…right?  I am so gonna kick that guy’s ass.”

“Jim, he’s got a point.”

“Yeah?  He sounds like he’s a bitter old fuck, to me, Pam.  And, a chauvinist on top of that!  This isn’t the 1950s!  I don’t think it has anything to do with how good you are.  He wouldn’t have said any of that stuff to you if you were a guy.  Pam, you can do anything you want.  There are a ton of jobs that you could get where you could be creative without being in a pressure cooker.  When’s the last time that guy even explored the job market?  He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I love you, Jim, but sometimes…you’ve got blinders on where I’m concerned.  Listen, most of those jobs require experience.  I’m going to be 31 next year!  Most people my age have six or eight years’ experience already!”

“So what?  So you start out in an entry level position and put your time in…”

“With a baby?  How am I going to do all that, Jim?  See…this is why I didn’t want to tell you about this.”

“What do you mean?”

“You think I can do anything!  Like I’m Superwoman or something!  What if I can’t?  What if I’m not as good as you think I am?”

“Oh, Pam.  Come on!”

“No, you come on!”

“Pam, you’re worrying about the next five, ten years!  Hell, you’re worrying about the whole rest of your life!  You don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”

“But that’s just the thing!  That’s how I was before…just blindly going along, day after day, and not thinking about  the future, beyond getting married…to Roy.  And when I finally thought about…when I finally saw that I was going down the wrong road…I had no road at all!  I didn’t even know who I was!  I had to recreate everything, Jim.”

“Yeah.  I know.  I know it was hard.”

“It was!  And…what the hell?  Do I have to do it all over again?”

“No, Pam.  I don’t think so...no.  But, you know what?  Sometimes, you have to take a detour and sometimes, it turns out to be the best thing that could have happened...even if it doesn’t seem like it at the time.”

     She sighs a heavy sigh. I’m not saying the right things.  I’m not making it better.  She’s worrying about things that are too far down the road and she’s lost her perspective and her optimism, but I’m not letting this go.  I try again.

“You did it when you left Roy…you took a detour.  I did it when I moved to Stamford.”

“Ugh…yeah, those were good times.”

“Yeah, okay...but we’ve both done it!  And if we have to do it again, we do it together.  We take turns driving and navigating.  You don’t have to do it all by yourself. We’ll figure it out together.”

     And…that’s the right thing.  Finally.  Or maybe she’s just tired of talking, I’m not sure.  But she sighs a good sigh and puts her arm around me, kisses me. 

“I’m just taking a break, okay?”

“Okay.”

     Later, when we’re face to face and I’m wrapped around her and we’re both about to fall asleep, I do the corniest thing I’ve ever done.  I sing to her.  I sing really softly in her ear, my voice cracking and bottoming out and a little off-key.

Before you cross the street…take my hand…life is just what happens to you…while you’re busy making other plans…

     And she doesn’t say anything.  She just lays her hand on my cheek before she drifts off.

~~

“What’s it for?” I ask her.

“It’s a…box!  For stuff.”

“Mm hm.  Mm hm.  Tell me more, Pam.”

“I don’t know!  Stuff!  Like diaper pins and hair clips and…”

“…marijuana and a one-hitter.  You totally made our baby a stash box.”

“I did not!  It’s a box that you keep on top of the dresser to put all your little stuff in so it’s not scattered all over the place.”

“Like your lighter and your Zig Zags?”

“Stop!  Don’t you think it’s pretty?”

     It really is, I have to admit.  It’s a pleasing shape, she sanded and oiled the wood until it looks like glass and the little knob on the top is a tiny carved wooden leaf. 

“It’s really nice, Pam, seriously.  You did a great job with it.”

“I really liked doing it, too.  It felt good to make something solid.”

     The days around my birthday in late March also marked the end of my first trimester and for this I was grateful.  My morning sickness had subsided to just a niggling feeling of nausea that would hit, oddly enough, right when I would sit down for dinner.  That overwhelming exhaustion that I seemed to carry around constantly also faded, and I began to think about planting flowers and a vegetable garden when the weather turned.  Best of all, the hormone hurricane had been downgraded to a tropical disturbance and Jim wasn’t peering around the door with a scared-shitless look on his face before he came in the house.  We actually laughed about it, him telling me that the first trimester had been like a box of chocolates…he never knew what he was going to get. 

     My father-in-law had had a mild heart attack after shoveling snow in late February and Jim was spending a lot of time at his parents’ house helping out with chores and errands.  I made casseroles and lasagnas and homemade soups for him to take to give Melinda a break in the kitchen.  I knew that cooking class was a good idea! 

     Work rolled on in the same travelling circus sort of way it always had, although we’d hired a new sales person who turned out to be a rather normal, rather sarcastically funny woman in her forties, named Kellie.  The day I realized I was really going to like Kellie was the day she was first introduced to Todd Packer on one of his rare but momentous visits.  When he very predictably made an extremely crude (even for Packer) pass at Kellie in front of the entire office, she just stared at him for the longest time, managing a look that was a little amused, but mostly disgusted and slightly threatening.  She never said a word, but her stare continued to darken until Packer sputtered, turned on his heel, and retreated into Michael’s office.  Jim told her she should have that stare licensed as a lethal weapon and she cracked up.  I clapped my hands and laughed my head off.    We became pretty good friends.

~~

     On a Saturday after Jim takes off to his parents’ house, Kellie comes over to help me paint the baby’s room.  It’s the first time she’s coming to our house and I’m excited to have her.  I'd insisted that she didn’t have to help me paint, but she said she misses doing home projects since she sold her house and moved into an apartment and would love to help.  I have coffee ready for her and we sit at the kitchen table, after the house tour, and chat for a little while. 

“The house is great, Pam.  They don’t build them like this anymore.”

“Oh, thanks!  We love it and we both grew up in older homes like this, so we’re used to the little quirks, like rattling windows and banging pipes.”

“Small price to pay for crown molding like this.  The floors are just beautiful, and the little terrace off the bedroom is to die for.”

     I smile and think about the very first time we walked into that bedroom and I spied the French doors and what lay beyond.  “It’s silly, but I cried the first time I saw the terrace!  I always wanted that and I swear, the rest of the house could have been falling apart and it wouldn’t have mattered.  That’s what sold us on the house.”

“Is Jim handy with stuff around the house?”

“You know, you wouldn’t think so, right? But he is!  His dad has spent a lot of time over here, giving advice and helping out and Jim’s brother, Jon, has too.”

“So, we've never really talked about this stuff, but, how long have you and Jim known each other?”

     I laugh.  “That’s a story that’s probably best told over a few margaritas, but I guess we’ll have to settle for coffee and a gallon of paint, huh?”

     A couple hours later, less than half of the baby’s room remains a drab yellow, and it’s quickly yielding to a wave of Tangerine Dream – a warm orangey-yellowy cantaloupe-ish color that I fell in love with and has received Kellie’s stamp of approval.  We’re moving pretty quickly around the room with Kellie’s steady hand cutting in and me moving behind her with the roller. 

“I’m so glad you offered to help, Kel.  I can’t believe how much faster this goes with two and I can’t believe you don’t tape!”

“I gave up the tape a long time ago, Pam.  It’s a pain in the ass, half the time it doesn’t really work and I’ve ruined a few paint jobs tearing it off.  Hey, I think if we grab some lunch after the first coat is done, we might be able to get a second coat up before the end of the day.”

“Really?  That would be so great.”

“Yeah, I think we can do it and then you’ll be done.  Jim mentioned that you were going to paint a mural on one of the walls in here…what are you planning?”

     I feel my stomach do a flip and my cheeks grow hot.  Damn his memory for the littlest things! 

“Oh…uh…that was really Jim’s idea and I’m not sold on it, myself.  I’ve never painted on such a big area before and I don’t want it to look hokey and amateurish and I couldn’t make up my mind about a design. Plus, I just love this color and I was thinking it might be better to wait until the baby is older and then maybe we could tape off an area and paint it together, you know, like maybe with finger paints…or…”

“Finger paints?  If you’re trying to avoid ‘amateurish’, Pam, I don’t think finger paints are the way to go. What if the kid doesn’t inherit your arty flair? Pam, think of all those kid drawings you’ve seen on people’s refrigerators!  Yeesh!  Half the time you can’t even tell what the hell the picture is and the other half of the time, you think you should warn the parents about their child’s future life of crime.  Those things are like Rorschach blots and the parents are so proud and you don’t know quite what to say and it’s just…uncomfortable.  Kid art sucks, Pam.”

“You crack me up, Kellie.  Yeah, maybe it’s not such a good idea.  Junior might take after Jim and be doomed to stick figures all his life.”  I laugh, but it’s a nervous laugh, because I really want to move on from this topic.  She’s probably on to my lame excuses and I really don’t want to have a discussion about why Pam isn’t painting anymore.  Thank God she changes the subject herself.

“It’s probably a blessing I never had kids.  They’d all probably end up on Dr. Phil, whining about how their crazy mother ruined their self-esteem and trying to stage an intervention.”

“Ha!  I’d love to see you use the Kellie Death Stare on Dr. Phil!”

“Speaking of the Death Stare, I had to use it on Creed yesterday.  I caught that loony bastard standing in front of the open refrigerator, eating my lunch!”

“Oh, no!  Creed has a few…issues.”

“Yeah, well, just staring into those crazy eyes gave me a flashback.”

     I think this is a perfect time to bring up my favorite Kellie topic, just to hear what new twist she’d put on the rant that would inevitably ensue.

“You really need a boyfriend.”

“Oh, Pam, for the love of God.   I need a lot of things…a new winter coat, a better retirement plan, the clutch in my car repaired, a good sushi place to open in Scranton, better foundation garments…just to name a few.  I most certainly do not need a boyfriend.”

“Don’t you ever get lonely for someone?”

“Not really…well, occasionally.  But it’s so occasional that it doesn’t even amount to real loneliness.  It’s really just horniness.”

“Wow.”

“What?  Pam, I’m 46 years old…”

“A very young 46, Kel.”

“Obviously!  But I’ve been married and divorced.  A couple times.  I’m not good at it, and frankly, I just don’t care about it that much anymore.  I don’t ever want to contemplate homicide over someone’s dirty underwear on my bedroom floor ever again.  I don’t want someone asking me where I go and what time I’m coming home or bitching at me for buying another new pair of shoes.”

“You do have a lot of shoes.”

“Shut up!”  She’s laughing and I tell her Jim doesn’t leave his underwear on the floor or bug me about what I do or where I go. 

“You got the last good man on the face of the earth.  There are no more left.  Jim’s a prince, Pam.  Truly.  Does he have a younger brother?”

“Younger?!”

“I don’t need a boyfriend,Pam.  But a boy toy might be just the ticket.”

“What about Andy?”

“Andy…from work?”

“Yeah.  He’s single.”

“Oh, Pam.  You’re kidding, right?  First, I’d have to burn all his clothes and then rip out his vocal chords.  After that, I might consider it.”

     We break for lunch after the first coat and I serve up Cuban pork sandwiches I made the night before and a chopped salad I threw together that morning.

“Pam, is there anything you can’t do?  This sandwich is out of this world and the salad is so good.  Is that…?”

“Lime juice and cilantro, yeah.  Oh, this was nothing!  I took a cooking class a month or so ago, and I made some really fancy schmancy stuff.  It was fun.”

“Okay, I knew about the knitting and the yoga, but…”

“Oh, I took a woodworking class, too!  Remind me to show you the box I made when we go back upstairs.  It’s really cool.”

“Okay, you’re unbelievable.  Here I was thinking I was hot shit because I can trim out a room without tape in under two hours, but you’re something else.  Jim’s told me so much about your drawings.  I want to see those, too.”

     God!  He talks too much.  This art thing is turning into a thing.  Nobody else realizes that yet, but I’m all too aware of it.  I’m not painting.  I’m not drawing.  I have no urge to draw; I have no inspiration to paint.  My sketchbooks taunt me from their place on my work table.  I page through them and taunt back:  You’re a little too obvious, aren’t you?  And what about you, thinking you’re abstract?  And you might think you look like Jim reclining in a beach chair, but you look more like a really tall version of Frodo after a night of binge-drinking.  I can barely remember drawing them. 

     Just the other day, I held a pencil and traced my hand over the lines and shadings just to get the memory back, to see if maybe just my hand will remember the motion, but it’s lost.  It’s been three months since I actually finished something.  I’ve sat in that room, trying to get myself into that mindset again, trying to will some inspiration into my fingers, but that only makes it worse and I closed the door to the art room just over a month ago and it hasn’t been opened since.

“Oh, Kellie, he’s crazy!  You know what you were saying about parents and their kids’ drawings?  That’s how Jim is with me.  No eye for art, blinded by love.”

“I seriously doubt that, Pam.  My very first day, when he and Michael took me to lunch, he stopped on the way out to show me your drawing of the building that’s hanging there.  He was gushing like a schoolgirl, yes, but it’s really, really good.  I mean, I could tell it was a building right off, Pam.  Never once did I think it was a dinosaur driving a bulldozer.”

“Or that I’d eventually turn to a life of crime?  You’re too kind, Kel.”

     She eventually wears me down and when we head back up to start the second coat, I open the door to the art room.

~~

     I’d heard all these things before.  You really captured a mood here.  These colors are just gorgeous.  Pam, you’re so talented.  But for the first time, they didn’t thrill me.  They didn’t send that tingle down my spine, they didn’t swell my chest up with pride.  Kellie sounded sincere when she said them, but I didn’t believe the words.  She was just being a friend, just being nice.  The rational bit of my brain told me Kellie wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t say things just to be nice.  She’d be honest with me, like she always was.  But that rational thought didn’t have a chance and it drowned in the sea of thoughts that told me they knew better.  I didn’t feel encouraged or thrilled or proud or inspired.  I just felt like an imposter. 

     I asked Kellie not to tell Jim she was in the art room.  I told her that I was working on a surprise for him for our anniversary in April and I didn’t want him to get curious and start snooping.  She agreed, and I added guilt to the growing, ragged heap of emotions trapped in that room.  I closed the door behind us and quickly asked her about her upcoming vacation to Mexico before she had a chance to say any more words about art.

     As I drive over to my folks’ house to visit with my Dad and move some furniture for my mother, I’m thinking about how fast my life seems to be changing.  Marrying Pam, expecting a baby, and now, my Dad’s heart attack, it's all starting to shift my responsibilities away from just being their kid to being a real grownup.  Somehow I’d gone from being just a son with a girlfriend to being a husband, almost a father, and now, taking extra care with my parents in less than two years.  I find that the first signs of their aging are becoming a reality and I also find that I’m not alone with my worries.  Pam’s right there with me, stopping at their house on the way home from work a couple nights a week, calling during the day to make sure they’re okay, to see if they need anything.  It’s not the first time I’ve seen her quiet strength, how she seems to know just what to do and then just does it without making any kind of noise about it.  But this?  The way she is with them is just...amazing.  These are my parents, but she has her own way with them - the three of them have their own thing going on.  The love and affection between them is something special, something I’d never really expected, and it has nothing to do with me, really.  Oh, they love my brother Jon’s wife, Beth, for sure, but Pam…it’s like they need her.  She knows it, too, and she seems to love that, loves them needing her warmth and the brightness of her smile.  So, from the minute the call came, shocking us out of our Sunday morning laziness, she was ready to do her part. 

     I was still on my first cup of coffee.  Actually, my first quart, since I was hanging on to the HOT mug with both hands. We were curled up on the couch, her back against me, nestled between my legs under a blanket, trying to pick up where we left off with Good Will Hunting from the night before.  I was fast-forwarding and stopping, asking “do you remember this part?” and she kept nodding her head but I don’t think she was paying attention because she was running her hands up and down my legs, looking back at me, waggling her eyebrows, and I had to scold her, telling her I wasn’t her sex toy and her saying, oh, yes you are. 

     Both of us had fallen asleep the night before, about 20 minutes into the movie, and I woke up around 4:30 am, completely disoriented, not knowing if I needed to get up and go to work or even what day it was.  When my head cleared, I debated whether to leave Pam asleep on the couch or wake her up to come up to bed.  I thought she was completely out, but then she stretched and reached out for me and I asked “do you want to come upstairs?” and she said “yes” but then her hand was inside my pajama pants.  Hmm.  I asked her if she was dreaming about Matt Damon again and she said ‘yeah…how do you like them apples?’ and I laughed, wondering how the hell she could be so quick when she was half asleep.  As I pulled her pajama bottoms off I told her I wasn’t very good at math and she said, “show me what you are good at, then” and we made love in that agonizingly slow way where we’re barely moving, and I want to stay inside her forever, and it’s so...sweet, the way I know her.  The way I know when she’s had enough and wants me to move faster, or pull her closer.  I know this even before she changes the angle of her hips or tightens her grip on my hair or deepens her kiss, but if I’m patient and wait and wait, she’ll do all those things, but then she’ll say it, too. She’ll say my name and sometimes it’s a plea and sometimes it’s a command, but, God help me, sometimes I make her wait, just to hear her call my name.   

     I resisted her eyebrows for the moment, and directed her attention back to the movie. When we both said “who’s that guy?” I hit ‘play’ and about 15 minutes later, the call came.  I reached for the phone and heard my mother’s controlled but anxious voice saying my father was in the hospital.  He’d had a heart attack, it was a mild one, but could we please come?  He was in the ER at Mercy Hospital – but was being moved to the Cardiac Care Unit, so just come to the main entrance and go straight to the CCU and be careful driving.  We were backing out of the driveway in about five minutes, Pam driving because she insisted and I couldn’t think to argue with her.  We’d only half undressed to throw on jeans and sweatshirts and pulled hats down over our crazy hair.  She tells me he’s going to be fine, you know, he’s in great shape and I say yeah, I know, but what I was thinking then, and what I’m thinking now as I head over to check on him, is if he’s in such great shape, how could this happen?

     I yell “Good morning!” as I push my way into the back door, loaded down with food that Pam had sent with me. 

“In the living room, Jim!” my mother yells back.

     I set the food down in the kitchen and walk in to find my mother trying to move the couch and my father in the recliner directing traffic.

“Jesus, Mom!  Why didn’t you wait for me?”

“Because your father won’t shut up about the glare on the TV from his throne!”

“Mom, get away from the couch.  Am I going to have both of you with the heart attacks, now?  Dad, why are you letting her do this?”

“Why is it my fault?  Like I could ever stop her from doing whatever she wanted.”

“Jim, you’re going to hurt your back!  Be careful!”

“Melinda, let the boy move the couch!  Why don’t you get us some coffee?  Jim, you want coffee?”

“No thanks, I already had a quart this morning.”

“Jim, you drink too much coffee.”

“It was a joke, Mom.  Kind of.”

“Watch your coffee.  Look at your father.”

“What, Mel?  Now it’s coffee that caused the heart attack?  Jim, every day, your mother has a new theory.  At this rate, I’ll be down to lettuce and herbal tea.”

My mother leaves us to go to the kitchen, shaking her head and muttering under her breath.

“Caffeine isn’t good for you right now, Pop.”

“Yeah, I know, I know.  Nothing I love is good for me.”

My mother calls from the kitchen, “Jim, did Pam send food again?  Good Lord, that girl has been feeding us for weeks!  And Mrs. Kramer from down the street brought over a coffee cake…”

“…that I can’t eat because it’s bad for me!”

“Mom, Pam made a fruit salad.  Dad, you want some fruit salad?”

“No, I want to hear about how my girl’s doing.”

“She’s doing…great, Dad.  She’s great.”

“Don’t bullshit your father, James.  I’m on my deathbed here.”

“Holy Mother of God!  Steve, you are not on your deathbed!”

“I was talking to my son!  Nothing wrong with your hearing, Mel!” and then he whispers to me, “I love winding your mother up.  I figure, if she thinks I’m dying, she’ll be nicer to me.”

“Is that how you keep the magic alive, Pop?”

“Thirty-five years.  I must be doing something right.”

     My mother calls us into the kitchen and I reach for my father’s arm to help him out of his chair, but he waves me off.  He says he’s starting cardiac rehab tomorrow morning, so he might as well start working out now.  We sit at the kitchen table and my mother pours coffee (“it’s decaf!  You’ll get used to it!”) and juice, sets bowls out for fruit and slices a piece of coffee cake for me. 

“How’s Pam doing?” my mother asks.  There’s a hint of concern in her voice, not the usual inquiry.

“Wasn’t she just here night before last, Mom?”

“Yes, but I’m asking you, Jim.  She didn’t seem quite herself to me and I didn’t want to pry.  Even your father noticed.”

“She seemed kind of quiet, Jim.  Not the usual Pam.”

~~

     From the minute my parents met Pam, she was more like a daughter than a daughter-in-law.  I knew they were going to love her and that she’d fit right into the family, but it was almost like we’d been missing her all these years and we just didn’t know it.  Then she was there, she was part of us, and the family felt more complete.  They’d wanted us to come to the house for dinner so they could meet her.  Pam was so nervous and I kept telling her there was no need to be, but she’d fretted over what to wear and what to bring and asked all kinds of questions about them to try to get a feel for them.  I told her to try and imagine us…thirty-five years in the future. 

     When she walked into the house, my mother went straight for a hug and I saw my Dad wanting to, but he held back and shook her hand and told her what a pleasure it was and when he looked at me, I knew I was grinning like an idiot but I couldn't help myself, and he smiled.  Of course, Pam and my mother had the art thing in common and they bonded over that after Pam commented on a painting of my mother’s hanging in the kitchen.  But my Dad…he kind of fell in love with her, I think.  He rushed to pull her chair out at the dinner table, made sure her glass was refilled, and I caught him watching her and making her laugh, and watching me with her.  After dinner, Pam helped my mother in the kitchen and my Dad and I were shooed out to the porch with our coffee.  He gripped my shoulder hard, wearing an “I told you so” smirk on his face. 

“What?” I asked him, but I knew exactly what he was thinking.

     When Suzanne Peterson broke my heart in high school, my father sat with me on this same porch and we shared our first beer as he tried to soothe my wounded teenage heart.  “She wasn’t the one, Jimmy.  The Halpert men… when we fall, we fall hard.  But she wasn’t the one.”  I’d tried to protest, listing all of Suzanne’s wonderful qualities, and he’d listened and agreed that she was a great girl, but he insisted… she wasn’t the one.  

“The first time I laid eyes on your mother, I fell 100% mind, heart, body, and soul in love with her.  No mistaking it, denying it, or escaping it.  The minute I saw your mother, I knew there would never be another woman for me.  I knew I was going to marry her.  It was like a thunderbolt, and I hate to tell you, Jim, but you haven’t been struck by lightning yet.  When you do, you’ll know.”  And it had been just like that with Pam.  Exactly.

“Looks like a really bad thunderstorm rolled in, Jimmy!” he said, looking very pleased with himself and with me. 

“The worst,” I said, with a grateful smile.  “I’d take cover if I were you, Dad.”

     Later, my mother called for us to come in and there the two of them were, on the couch, surrounded by old pictures.  Pam had gotten her wish, and she looked up at me, her hands squeezed together on her lap and her legs straight out, feet kicking a little in glee.  Oh, man.  This was going to be painful.  My mother had all the old photo albums out and she handed one to my father and the three of them sat on the couch, Pam in the middle, and they told her all the family stories that went with all the pictures.  She got to laugh at all my class pictures and listen to my Dad crow about the state basketball championship.  She wanted to know about the girl in the senior prom picture with me, and my Dad, what a jokester, said, “What was that girl’s name, Jim?  I can’t remember!”  But my mother piped up.  “Suzanne Peterson and she broke my son’s heart.”  To Pam, she added, “She’s married now, with three kids.  Her husband…drinks.”  Pam and I both cracked up at her…wanting to make sure Pam knew this girl from my past posed no threat to her, at the same time pointing out to both of us what a mistake she’d made by dumping me and moving on. 

     The living room dimmed, the lamps were turned on, Pam’s carrot cake was served to rave reviews, and I watched them, the three of them just… charming one another.  It all felt so…familiar.  I kept reminding myself that this was the first time they’d met, when it really felt like she’d been with us forever.  I was so proud of her, so proud of myself for winning her and I saw pride in my father’s eyes because…yes, she was the one and wasn’t this going to be so fine?

     I finally called a halt to the evening when my mother suggested bringing out the home movies.  Pam begged to stay and watch but I said it was late and my Dad agreed but told her, “We’ll do it another night, Pam.”  Saying good night, he went for the hug and I nudged him, teasing him to stay away from my girl.  In the car on the way home, she chattered on and on about how much she loved them and how welcome they’d made her feel and do you think they really liked me?, when she knew as well as I did that the feelings were very mutual.  She said, the girl in the prom picture, Suzanne, she was really pretty.  I tell her, yeah, she was.  She said, you loved her, didn’t you?  I tell her that I thought I did, but it turned out she wasn’t the one.  She takes my hand and our eyes meet in the shadowy light from the dashboard and she whispers, that’s me, right?  I bring her hand to my lips, kissing her fingers and saying, yes, that’s you…it couldn’t be anyone else.

~~

I sigh and put my head in my hand.  I can’t hide anything from the people in my life.  Pam, my folks, they all know me too well and I’m too much of an open book.

“She’s not painting,” I say.

“What do you mean, she’s not painting?” This, from my father.

“She’s not painting anything, she’s not drawing.”

My father comes to Pam’s defense, like I’m accusing Pam of something, saying, “She’s pregnant, Jim!  Give her a break!”

     And then my mother chimes in, saying Pam needed a little break from school and talking about all the classes Pam’s been taking and how much she loves the scarf Pam knitted for her.

“I know, I know!  She did need a break from school and she’s getting her energy back.  She did need a break from school, I agree.  But…she’s not painting.”

Then, my mother gets it, and she gives my father a look.  “Steve, you know how it was with me.  How it still is.”

     And he does know.  He knows how she’s happiest when the brush is in her hand.  How after all these years of teaching art classes to 8th graders, she still has to paint for herself.  He’s witnessed her dark moods when the feeling won’t come or when the canvas fights her.  He understands this passion better than I do, even though she’s my mother and Pam is my wife, he’s the one who has lived with it longer, and he knows. 

“Jim, what’s happened?  What’s going on with my girl?”

“Dad, she pushes herself so hard, she’s such a perfectionist.  She got Bs in both her classes last semester, and she beat herself up for it because she didn’t get As.  Crazy!  Upset about getting a B!  I told her to talk with one of her professors, get some feedback…stupid… and he was an asshole to her…telling her she should rethink her career plans, that she’d have to choose between her family and a career and Pam thought it was just his way of telling her she just wasn’t good enough.”

“Who was it…which professor?” my mother wants to know.  The art community in Scranton is a small one, and it’s likely she knows him.

“Jennings.”

“Oh, Doug Jennings,” my mother says with a sad note.  “His wife…ex-wife, I guess.  They’ve been divorced about ten years, now.  It’s the saddest thing…she was diagnosed with ALS and their daughter was caring for her for the longest time, but she got so bad…she’s in a nursing home.  She was a lovely woman.”

     I feel the anger I was harboring for this man I’d never met drain away and now I understand.  That conversation…the one that devastated my wife, the words that had her crying and clinging to me…that talk that shook her confidence down to her core…it wasn’t even about her. 

“Mom, she’s lost her confidence.  She thinks I don’t know what she’s doing, busying herself with all these other things.  She thinks I haven’t noticed that she hasn’t touched her sketchbooks…hell, I don’t think she’s even opened the door to her art room in months!”

“Yes.”  That’s all she says, because she knows. 

“I have to tell her about Jennings…if she knew all that, it would make her see…”

“No, Jim.”  Now it’s my father’s turn.  “Don’t say anything.”

“But…why, Dad?  If Pam knew about this…”

“You can’t talk her back into herself.  You…just can’t.” 

     He’s talking to me but his eyes are locked with my mother’s and I realize he’s been in my shoes, they’ve seen this storm come and go and I would be wise to keep my mouth shut and listen for once.

“If Pam is anything like your mother, and I think she is…she’ll come around to it.  But…it will be in her own time.  You’re smart enough to know she’s not herself without this.  It’s the truest part of her and she has to come back to it because that's who she is.”

     My mother’s eyes are glistening when she turns to me and takes my hands. 

“You love her…and I’m so proud of you for loving her the way you do.  But don’t pressure her, Jim. 

"Mom!  I'm not..."

"I know you don’t think you are…but that’s what she feels.  Let her take all the crazy classes she wants…that passion to create something has to come out.”

“I just don’t want her to think she has to hide it from me, Mom.”

“She doesn’t want you to be disappointed with her, Jim.  She always wants to be her best self for you.”  And she’s talking to me, but she’s smiling at my father, and he takes over.

“Be patient with her…love her…that’s all you can do.”

     I should feel better…unburdened, after sharing this with them after keeping it to myself for so long, but I don’t really. 

“It…it doesn’t feel like that’s enough,” I say.  “I want to help her, I want to…”

“It’s enough, Jim” my father says.

“It’s more than enough,” my mother says.

When it came time for my 20-week ultrasound, I never thought we’d be arguing about whether or not we’d want the doctor to tell us the baby's sex.  Everybody finds that out, right?  I always knew I’d want to know.  How can you not want to know?  Jim?  He didn’t want to know.  He wanted to be surprised.  He wanted to wait until the baby was almost all the way out of me (God, I can’t even think about that too much) and hear Dr. Tedesco say, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” and be completely surprised.  I thought there’d been enough surprises lately and I wanted to know!  I was dying to know!  Of all the things I thought we might disagree on, I never expected this, and I never expected him to be so stubborn about it, either.

He says, why don’t you have the doctor just tell you?  He says he’ll leave the room.  I tell him he’s lost his mind.  First, I don’t think I’d be able to keep that a secret for nearly 4 more months – I’m sure I’d slip up and say “he” or “she” or something and ruin his surprise, like it’s his birthday or something.  Way too much pressure on me.  Second, I know him.  He thinks he wants me to keep it a secret from him, but he won’t be able to stand it.  He won’t be able to stand it that I know and he doesn’t and he’ll start trying to get me to tell him.  Once I know, it’s going to drive him crazy, which will in turn, drive me crazy, and I am not going to have him driving me crazy with this for four more months.

Kellie thinks it’s adorable that Jim wants to be surprised so she’s no help, and the other Kelly?  She’s already convinced I’m having a girl because she had a very detailed dream about it (that I had to hear about in detail), so she doesn’t need confirmation from some stupid ultrasound.  Kevin, naturally, has started a baby pool and Phyllis, refusing to take sides, is crocheting a yellow receiving blanket for us.  Of all people, Michael is siding with me and is almost as excited as I am to find out.  I guess that makes sense, given Michael’s inability to keep anything secret.  He’s also fascinated with my growing belly and I can’t believe I did this, but I let him touch my belly.  I know!  But he was staring at it when I was trying to show him how to use a new feature on email and I couldn’t get him to focus, so I finally said, “Michael, do you want to touch my belly?” and he just nodded and reached his hand out, barely touching it.  It wasn’t as creepy as I thought it was going to be and it made him so damned happy.  I figured that it was pretty mild compared to the indignities I was going to suffer during labor. 

And let me just say this:  everyone who has ever been pregnant in the history of childbirth- even strangers in the grocery store! - want to tell me their childbirth horror stories.  Why?  Why do other women want to scare the crap out of me with these horrifying tales of 97 hours of labor and babies in backward pretzel positions and episiotomies and blood and the epidural or being too late to get the epidural?  My mom’s been as reassuring as she can be, but when Melinda told me that Jim was 9 pounds 6 ounces at birth, I nearly fainted.  I’ve seen the pictures – he had a great big melon head.  Huge!  So, I think I’m entitled to find out the sex of the baby.  Horror stories, melon heads…I just want to know if it’s a boy or a girl.

I can’t believe it when we’re in the car on the way to the appointment with the whole thing still up in the air.  I don’t know what’s going to happen.  When I’m just about at my breaking point and I want to just scream at him, he says, “I’ll make a deal with you, alright?”

“What’s the deal?”  I’m pretty suspicious.  He’s been holding onto his side of the argument pretty tightly.

“This year, I’m kind of getting gypped out of Father’s Day.  It’s in June, right?  And the baby isn’t coming until August and that means I have to wait almost a whole year to celebrate Father’s Day.  It’s wrong, Pam.  It’s unfair.”

“Mother’s Day is only a month before that, though!  It’s the same for…”

“Not the same, Pam!  No!  Everybody makes a big deal about Mother’s Day and Father’s Day just gets left in the dust.  Totally unfair.”

“Okay, what’s the deal, then?”

“We find out what we’re having today, both of us, but I get to plan a weekend away for us to celebrate Father’s Day and you can’t know anything about it.  You have to get in the car and go along with whatever I have planned, okay?” 

That seemed like a small price to pay.  I mean, I get to find out the sex of the baby and I get whisked away on a mystery weekend? 

“Deal!  Seems like you’re giving in pretty easily, though.  I feel bad.”

“No you don’t, but that’s okay.  You really want to know, so…I’m just going to be surprised a little early, that’s all.  But come Father’s Day…”

“Okay!  Actually, it sounds really…wait!  What are you planning?”

“Pam…Pam.  You’ll just have to wait and see.  It’s a surprise.”

But the baby had his or her own ideas.  We were watching the monitor, neither of us breathing for what seemed like an hour and we got arms and head and back and feet and that was all great, but we couldn’t see what we needed to see.  Finally, when the baby started to turn and Jim was whispering, ‘wait for it…wait…' and we both gasped and Jim said, ‘Whoa!  That’s my boy!’ the doctor had to crush his ego by telling him that was the umbilical cord.  So we both ended up walking out of the office still not knowing what we were having and I was disappointed and he was a little bit, too, because he’d been caught up in the moment of actually looking at our baby and the whole “Where’s Waldo?” aspect of the ultrasound.  He said he was sorry and hugged me, but on the way home, he was smirking and grinning and trying to hide it because, ultimately, he’d gotten his way and we were still going to go on a Father’s Day mystery trip because “Fair is fair, Pam!”  Then he bent his head down toward my belly and said, “Mommy needs to play by the rules!  Isn’t that right, Mr. Weathersby?”

~~

He has to work late the night of our anniversary and it actually turns out okay, because this feels like a real date…me getting ready alone in the house, waiting for him to come and pick me up and take me to dinner.  I finally broke down and bought a real maternity dress when the safety pins and rubber bands around my skirt buttons just weren’t cutting it anymore.  It’s soft and pink (because he likes me in pink) and I guess it’s pretty, but I kind of feel like a giant Easter egg.  At least I don’t have to worry about my rubber bands snapping open and shooting across the restaurant. 

The traditional first anniversary gift is paper.  Naturally, I thought about drawing or painting something for him and framing it.  I thought about it and sat in my room organizing my pencils and brushes and looking through old paintings and sketches.  He’d be thrilled to get anything, I thought.  Just knowing I was in here thinking about painting would make him happy.  He thinks I don’t know how sad he is about how sad I am about not drawing…but I know.  I know he talked to his folks about it, too, because Melinda called today and asked if I could help her with the Spring Art Fair at her school.  “It’d be fun for you to…be around the kids,” she’d said.  “They get so excited about their projects!”  She really needed the help, too, she’d said. 

Jim’s mother is only a slightly better liar than Jim, which means she’s a complete open book, while Jim’s book is open and has extra large print.  And who am I kidding?  Jim is totally onto me, too, and I’m sure he’s talked to his parents about it. 

“Did Jim talk to you, Mel?”

“About what, Pam?”

“About me.  About my…blockage.”

“Pam, is something wrong with you or the baby?”

“No!  I meant my...Mel, I’m blocked.  I can’t draw anything.”

“Oh, honey!  Yes, Jim talked to us.  He was so worried about you.  Don’t be mad.”

I’ll admit, I was momentarily miffed at him, but now that I’m talking with Mel and my big, dark secret is out, I realize I probably should have talked to her a long time ago.  If anyone would understand, she would.

“I’m not mad.  I just…I feel so…lost, Mel.  Like I’ve lost my best friend.”

“Yes, I know that feeling.”

“It’s like…it used to flow out of me without even thinking about it and now I can’t grab onto it with both hands to pull it out of me.”

“And the harder you try, the worse it seems to get and you’re not satisfied with anything you do.”

“Exactly!  I used to dream in pastels, you know?  I mean, I would dream things that would turn into paintings in my dream.”

She was quiet for a minute and I asked if she was still there.

“Yes…yes, I’m still here, sweetheart.  Listen, I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but you have the gift, Pam, and it doesn’t go away.  You haven’t lost anything.”

“Then what happened, Mel?  Where did it go?  Why can’t I do anything?”

“I wish I could tell you.  What you’re going through?  It’s happened to me more than once in my life and I know.  It feels like a death, like you’ve lost the one person you could always count on.”

“I just want to finish one thing.  Just one!”

“How long has it been, Pam?”

“It’s been four months, Mel!  Four months!”  I started to cry.  I’d been holding this in for so long.

“I know.  I know, Pam.  It’s so hard.”

“Mel, I feel…pathetic.  I feel like maybe this whole thing was just a passing fancy of mine that’s run its course and I should move on to the next thing…whatever that is.

 “Like Jim playing the trumpet?”

“What?”

“He never told you?  Oh, when he was in eighth grade he wanted to play the trumpet and drove us crazy until we got him a trumpet and he played that thing like mad for two years and then put it away and never touched it again.”

“I never knew that, but yes!  Do you still have his trumpet?  Maybe I should give that a whirl.”

“No, I gave it away before he could find it again.  Anyway, that was a passing fancy...not the same as what you're going through at all.  The boy had absolutely no talent for the trumpet whatsoever...but he tried hard and we...loved him."

I burst out laughing and told her I couldn’t wait to call him Louis Armstrong.

“You didn’t hear it from me, okay?  He’s so sensitive!  Pam, what you have…that’s different.  You have a real gift and you don’t put that down.  It doesn’t go away.”

“Please tell me it will come back, Mel.”  I felt so desperate, begging for her reassurance.

“It will.  I can’t tell you when or how or why.  I don’t want to scare you, but I went nearly a whole year after Jon was born without doing a thing and I was miserable.”

“A year?”

“Yes, but it came back all at once.  One morning, I woke up and took him to the park in the stroller.  We came up on the little playground there and there were ducks on the pond and the whole scene was so lovely.  I tore my purse and the diaper bag apart, looking for something to draw on and poor Jon!  I wheeled his stroller around so fast, he nearly fell out the side and I just about ran home.  The urge to capture that scene, to feel that first brushstroke on the canvas was so strong…the strongest I’d ever felt.”

“That’s the picture that’s hanging in your kitchen.”

“Yes, it is.  You told me how much you liked it the first time you came to dinner.  That painting holds so much meaning for me.”

I sighed into the phone.  Just talking with her had relieved a lot of the guilt and anxiety I’d been trying to hide away. 

“Sweetheart...Pam…it’ll come back.  Please try to believe me, have some faith in yourself, and be patient.  It’ll come.”

~~

We’d decided to plant a tree in the backyard to commemorate our first anniversary instead of buying each other gifts.  Plus, paper comes from trees, so it was kind of like a paper gift, we’d decided.  A white flowering dogwood, we’d agreed, because the flowers were so pretty in the spring and the foliage turns deep red in the fall.  “A beautiful sight in all seasons” the tag promised.  Last weekend, while Jim was digging the hole, it started to rain that slow, gentle rain you get in the spring.  We continued on because the tree needed to get in the ground.  We were both kneeling on the wet grass, refilling the hole with dirt as fast as we could, when it really started to pour.  It was warm for April and we weren’t wearing coats or hats and our sweatshirts were nearly soaked through.  We laughed and gave up trying to rush.  When we finished and stood back to look at our tree in the pouring rain, I looked at my husband with his hair plastered to his head, rain dripping down off his hair,clinging to his eyelashes and rolling down his cheeks and into the corners of his big, open grin.  He looked so handsome, he took my breath away. 

“You look good in the rain,” I told him.

“’Into every life, a little rain must fall,’” he joked.

“A beautiful sight in all seasons,” I said.

~~

When the doorbell rang, I actually felt butterflies in my stomach!  He was ringing the doorbell and not using his key…like it was a real date!  I grabbed my sweater and went to the door and there he stood with a bouquet of pink Gerbera daisies, the same flowers I’d carried last year.  And we just stood there for a minute, looking at each other and I don’t know why, but something happened in that moment for me.  It wasn’t the way he looked, though he looked wonderful and so happy to see me.  It wasn’t the flowers or my new dress or even the significance of the occasion.  It was us.  It was how much we loved each other and how much we were loved by our families and how much everyone was already loving this baby, and it was our house and our tree, and in that moment I was struck by how big it had all become.  All of my worries, all of my fears seemed so small right then. 

“Happy anniversary, Mrs. Halpert,” he said.

“Happy anniversary, Mr. Armstrong,” I said.

“Mr. Armstrong?”

“I’ll tell you in the car, Louis.  Let’s go.”

She was feeling good in May, and her mood had brightened significantly.  The dark clouds that had blown in and hovered over her before spring were still there, but she was able to push them away more times than not.  Sometimes, I’d look over to her desk at work and catch her staring off with her eyebrows knitted together, thinking, worrying.  One Sunday morning, we met in the upstairs hallway – me leaving the bathroom after a shower and her closing the door to the art room – and she was brushing away tears.  I reached for her but she put her hands on my arms and quickly said, “It’s okay…I’m okay, Jim” and she smiled a tight little smile as she moved past me to the stairs.  It was killing me not to hold her and help her and try to fix everything, but I held on tightly to my parents’ advice instead, and I just… I just loved her.  The way I always had.

She was waking up earlier, now.  She was getting bigger, the baby was getting bigger and was settled up high, and after lying down all night she said it felt good to get up, stretch, and take a full, deep breath, even if it was 5:30 in the morning.  It didn’t help that the baby seemed to be really active in that hour or so before the alarm went off and more than once, I was woken up by a tiny elbow or foot or some baby part poking me in the back as Pam lay close behind me.  Man, I loved that.  I’d lie really still and hold my breath and silently root the baby on – more, more, keep going – like he was running for the goalposts or she was rounding third and heading for home.  It was just the coolest thing, feeling that movement, and it never got old for me.  One morning, I felt a steady kick then poke then kick then poke and Pam (I didn’t even know she was awake) whispered, “there’s a dance competition going on in my uterus” and I told her, “thank God Francine has my sense of rhythm.” 

Ever since we’d planted the dogwood, she was itching to get her hands back in the dirt and start planting flowers and tomatoes and she wanted an herb garden and of course, there would be Gerbera daisies in the pots on the terrace outside the bedroom.  She’d borrowed my mother’s gardening books and studied them like textbooks, calling her to ask about soil acidity and other stuff that seemed to get her pretty worked up.  We were going to continue the tradition my folks started years ago:  putting in the garden on the Saturday before Mother’s Day.  They’d been doing it every year for as long as I could remember and this year, we were doing it, too.  My father always tilled up the ground and my mother would spend the day planting and watering while he set up the shade screen over the lettuce and buried stakes next to the tomatoes and cucumbers.  The next day, Mother’s Day, my dad would make a huge breakfast for the whole family, whistling in the kitchen, pouring batter into the waffle iron, refusing to let my mother help.  He’d banish her to the patio with a kiss (okay, one time, I caught a little more going on than just a kiss, but I’m trying to forget that) and a cup of coffee. 

Because my father wasn’t going to be able to handle the tilling this year, we’d struck a deal with my folks that involved a very complicated series of switching cars and drop-offs and follows.   I’d brought their tiller over to our house in the back of their truck (leaving my car there) so I could till up the ground at our place first.  My mom was going to bring my dad here (in her car) to help Pam with her planting.  She insisted he wasn’t going to get off easy just because he wasn’t going to be on the business end of the tiller.  Then, I was going to load my Mom and the tiller back into the truck and go over to their house to take care of their garden.  We were all going to meet back at my folks’ for dinner, Pam bringing my dad back home in my mom’s car, us leaving in mine.  I can’t tell you how many phone calls this required and there was a lot of eye-rolling involved.  I made, I admit, a really bad joke about “Trading Spouses” and Pam told me I was gross and not always funny and she rolled her eyes at me.

That Saturday morning, I woke up to find the French doors to the terrace open and Pam sitting in the wicker chair, bent over a sketchbook.  She’d pinned her wild morning hair up, but a few strands refused to stay put and her robe had slipped open, revealing one bare and lovely leg draped over the edge of the table.  She struggled to reach over her belly, her finger marking a spot in one of the books that lay open in front of her as she tapped her pencil against her teeth.  I knew she was only mapping out the placement and arrangement of annuals and perennials, but the sight of her…well, I watched her for a long time.  When I propped my head up in my hand, the movement caught her eye and she launched right in.

“How do you feel about…sunflowers?”

I told her I had nothing against sunflowers.  I was open to sunflowers. 

“What about peas?  You like peas, right?”

“I think we should…give peas a chance, Pam.”

“Oh…so lame!”

“There it is!  The honeymoon’s over.  You’re groaning at my jokes.”

“You need better jokes.”

“Maybe you should have married a gentleman farmer instead.  Like…”

“Dwight did have some good tips about keeping rabbits out of the garden, you know.  Hmmm…”

I got up out of bed, and walked out to the terrace.

I asked her if those tips included performing a mating ritual on planting day as I bent down and scooped her up out of the chair and she shrieked and yelled “No!  Jim!  I need to…” but I kissed her so she couldn’t tell me no and I kept my lips against hers as I told her it was a sacred Amish tradition, just so I could feel her laugh.

~~

I’d really like to take credit for the whole thing because it’s just so brilliantly awesome, but I can’t.  Well, I could, but my mother would kick my ass if she ever found out I was pawning her idea off as my own. 

Before taking my mom back to the house to work on their garden, I help Pam get set up with all her tools and seeds and stakes and twine, and she’s got all her plans out and I tell her not to let my dad boss her around.  He tells me I’m lucky he’s got a “condition” because I’m not too big to “take down.”  Okay, Dad…whatever.  Jon and I always agreed that my Dad talked a big game, but my mother was really the one we needed to watch out for.  He gives me a little shove and tells me to be careful with his truck.  I kiss Pam goodbye and she reminds me to grab the metric ton of potato salad she made to take for dinner so she doesn’t have to lug it over later.  I settle the bowl in my mother’s lap and we take off.

We haven’t done this since I was a kid, both of us kneeling in the same row, me digging the holes with the hand trowel and her following with her seed tray and watering can.  Soon, we settle into a familiar routine…her watching every move I make and yelling, “too close, Jim” or “not deep enough!” and I actually think (damn you, Michael) “that’s what she said” but she’d hit me if I said that out loud, so, instead, I ask her if she wants to do it herself and she tells me, “that smirk is not a good look for you.” 

“Pam seems to be doing better,” she says to me.  “She hasn’t said anything to me, but is she…?”

“No, but I think she’s doing okay with it right now.  She has her moments.”  I tell her about the tears in the hallway.

“I know it’s hard for you to see her upset.  But it’s good you’re not making a big deal out of it.”

“I’m taking her away for the weekend next month.”

“Oh, nice, Jim!  Where are you going?”

“Mom, it’s going to be so great!  I have it all planned and it’s a total surprise for her.”

“Tell me!”

“I found this really cool place – The Deerhill Inn - in Vermont.  West Dover.  It’s beautiful and…get this!  They have an art gallery!”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful!”

 “Yeah, I can’t wait.  She knows we’re going somewhere, but she doesn’t know where.”

“When are you going…what weekend?”

I hadn’t thought about it until I’d already made reservations and I felt like a complete heel.  I’d only been thinking about my Father’s Day and not that we’d be away from home that weekend.

“Oh…yeah, Mom.  We’re going over Father’s Day weekend.”

She drops her hands and looks at me with her mouth hanging open and her eyes all crazy and I almost flinch because for a second I think she’s going to slug me for being a thoughtless jerk.

“Father’s Day weekend?”

“Yeah, Mom…I’m really sorry…”

“No!  Jim, no, it’s okay.  Your father won’t mind, but you can’t go to Vermont.”

“Why not?  I know it’s kind of a long drive for her, but Dr….”

“No, Jim…I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before…well, I did, when she was telling me about her dreams turning into paintings, but then I forgot about it…”

She’s looking a little weird, like she’s going into a trance or something and she’s rambling and grabbing onto my arm.

“…and I can’t believe you didn’t think of it.  For the love of God!”

“Mom!  What?”

“Have you made reservations yet?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Call and cancel them today!  Jim, you’re not going to Vermont.  You’re going to Buffalo.  For Father’s Day.  You’re taking Pam to Allentown.”

~~

I don’t know if I can do justice to the Allentown Art Festival with words.  You have to see it, you have to experience it with all your senses, because it isn’t just about walking around and looking at art.  First, it’s the neighborhood…it’s where my mother lived while she was earning her teaching degree at Buffalo State College.  Allentown is a jumbled collection of brick and wood frame buildings, old Victorian homes, boutiques, antique stores, bars, and restaurants.  The streets are narrow and tree-lined, and some are still paved with cobblestones.  This area doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the city and it’s always attracted artists, poets, musicians and other bohemian, counterculture characters.  My mother…God, I love thinking of her living here as a college student…had a tiny studio apartment on Virginia Place, on the third floor of an old house, only half-refurbished.  Nearly the entire area of the apartment was housed in the huge turret that anchored the south corner of the house, facing the street, a series of long, narrow windows running floor to ceiling and spanning the entire semi-circle that looked out over downtown.  She’d always said it was the best light…morning, dusk, it didn’t matter.  The light through those windows was magical, she said.

Every year on Father’s Day weekend, the neighborhood is blocked off to car traffic for the art festival.  The weather in mid-June is perfect, blue skies, few clouds, and the festival has rarely been spoiled by rain.  Booths line Allen and Delaware and Virginia and artists come from all over the country to display everything from traditional paintings and sculptures to things that have you scratching your head and backing slowly away and moving on to the next booth.  There’s a ton of food and drinks and music and street performers and the festival attracts thousands and thousands of people over the course of the weekend – all kinds of people, so just sitting on the curb and watching the whole spectacle roll by is a big part of the fun.  It’s a weird and wonderful mix of 4th of July carnival, outdoor concert, freak show, and art museum. 

It’s a little over a 4-hour drive from Scranton to Buffalo and my folks used to go to Allentown every year before they had Jon and me.  The year Jon was born, my father celebrated his first Father’s Day by carrying Jon on his back in a baby carrier-thing, wandering the streets of Allentown while my mother got her fill of paintings and pottery, Sahlen’s hot dogs and lemonade.   My first trip to Allentown was in a stroller and I don’t remember anything about it, but my mother says I was pretty entertained with the whole thing until a mime made me scream bloody murder and that started Jon bawling and we didn’t return to Allentown until 1987.  Even then, I steered clear of those fucking mimes and Jon teased me the entire time about being scared of clowns and being a big baby, but I got a t-shirt that year (he didn’t) and I still have it, packed away somewhere.  We’d gone a couple other times over the years, but later on, Jon and I were busy with sports or summer jobs, so my folks had gone alone a few times, but it had been years since they’d made the trip. 

I’d been to Allentown a little more recently.  I told a few buddies from college about it, selling them on the idea with the lure of Buffalo’s 4:00 am drinking curfew.  We piled into my Dad’s Chrysler and drove up and it was the hottest weekend of the summer and we drank too much beer, did too many shots, and got thrown out of Mulligan’s Brick Bar.  I forgot to get a t-shirt that year and…I don’t think I ever told Pam about that.

~~

“Oh, Mom, that’s brilliant!”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Mom, why didn’t I think of that?”

“I don’t know!  My God, Pam is going to…”

“She’s going to go crazy!  She’s going to love it!”

“You think she’ll be okay to be on her feet all that time?”

“We’ll go slow!  We’ll break it up and go somewhere for lunch and go back!  We’ll go both days, if she wants.  Oh, Mom, I can’t wait for her to see it!”

“It’s sort of a family tradition and it’s…perfect, isn’t it?”

“It’s more than perfect.”

She tells me this makes her so happy and she kisses my cheek.

“It’s full circle, Jim.  It’s the circle of life.”

“Have you and Dad ever told her the story?”

“I haven’t.  I don’t think your father has, either.”

“I can’t believe it.  He loves to tell that story.”

“He gets a little further and further away from the truth every time he tells it.”

“Yeah, but it’s still a good story.”

No, it’s a great story, I think.  It’s the story of my mother, an art ed major, bursting with creative energy and light and beauty, open to all the possibilities that might come, tying her long, dark hair back in a simple ribbon and heading down the cobblestones of Virginia Place toward the sound of music and the smell of summer and hot dogs and fireworks.  It’s the story of my father, all shaggy-haired and anti-war, enrolled in a Masters program for education administration at the University of Buffalo, strolling from the Main Street campus toward the Allentown Art Festival in his “Students for George McGovern” t-shirt on Father’s Day, 1972, unaware that he was about to get struck by a thunderbolt in the middle of Allentown.

Chapter title is a lyric from "She's Something Special" by Eric Clapton (owned by EC and not me)

At the end of May, for the long Memorial Day weekend, I was driving to visit my parents.  Alone.  I’d been missing my mother so much and there was something about becoming a mom that made me want to take one giant step back and just be a kid again.  My parents had visited me and Jim a few weekends and we’d gone there to visit, too, but I just wanted them all to myself and I was really looking forward to it.  Staying in my old room, having my mom cook dinner, doing a little shopping, seeing my sister and her baby…I couldn’t wait to just be me for a weekend.  Pregnant me, or… me plus one, but still me.  And as long as I promised to call him once on the drive and once when I got there to let him know I was okay, Jim was totally fine with me going alone.  He said he was going to have a poker game on Saturday night, but promised to have the house cleaned up and the strippers gone by the time I came home.  I told him he’s hilarious but he needs to work on his delivery.

It turned out that Melinda really did need help with the Spring Art Fair and it wasn’t just a ruse to get me back in the game.  I took a couple hours off work on a Thursday to help her and her students set up the auditorium and get tables and tags and other little details ready for the fair on Friday night.  She was right – the kids were so excited to be showing their stuff off and even though it was a struggle to get them to calm down enough to focus, they were a lot of fun.  Melinda introduced me as “Mrs. Halpert” – her son Jim’s wife.  Some of the kids knew Jim from a summer basketball camp he’d helped run, and a few of the girls started giggling and whispering behind hands as they were pretty obviously checking me out.  They came up to me later and asked, “Is Jim really your husband?” like I was married to Brad Pitt or something.  The giggling commenced in earnest after I told them he was, and they told me he was sooooo cute! And soooo tall!  I couldn’t resist…I said he was a good kisser, too, and they screamed with laughter and pointed at my belly and said, “oooooh, Mrs. Halpert!” They wanted to know all about the baby and when I was due and what I was having (I wish I could have told them!) and what I was going to name the baby and would I name it Jim Junior if it was a boy.   I couldn’t wait to tell Jim about his fan club.

When I got home that night, Jim was out in the garden weeding and thinning out the lettuce and the spinach.

“I hope you’re in the mood for salad, Beesly.  Like for the next three months.”

“I tried to tell your father we didn’t need so much, but…”

“Yeah, he’s a stubborn old man, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, but he’s a big old softie, too.  Like father, like son.”

~~

It doesn’t take too long for me to figure out why Jim had warned me not to let Steve boss me around.  I might as well throw my plans away, because he’s got very definite ideas about how the rows need to be planted and how much of each vegetable needs to go in.  Out of respect for his experience and the fact that he’s helping me with my first garden, I don’t argue, but I warn him that the flowers are going in my way or else, and he agrees.

Pretty soon, we settle into a comfortable rhythm of me digging the holes and Steve following with my seed tray and watering can.  He’s watching me like a hawk and occasionally mutters “too close, Pam” or “not deep enough” and I follow his instructions but I’m starting to get a little cranky, so I decide to distract him a little.

“I had a lot of fun at the art fair yesterday.”

“Good turnout this year.  Mel gets so worked up every year making sure everything’s perfect. She appreciated your help.”

“You know, I always wondered…Melinda’s so talented.  I always wondered why she decided to teach instead of…doing her own thing but then I saw her with the kids…”

“She’s something, isn’t she?  Kids that age…they’re tough.  They tend to be so full of themselves and think they know everything and she’s so good with them.  I wish I had her at my school but she likes teaching the younger kids.”

“She told me the first five years she was teaching…it was a little rough.”

Steve laughs.  “The first year, they ran all over her.  She was young and she looked even younger than she really was.  The kids knew she was a new teacher and they just…she had a lot of discipline problems and she came home crying or ready to quit every other day, it seemed.”

“I can’t imagine that!”

“I think the first year is tough for any teacher.  You’re a little in love with the idea of teaching, but the reality of it…well, she overcompensated the next year.  Someone had told her the old saying about how a teacher should never smile before Christmas…”  He laughs again.  “She went into her second year determined not to have a repeat, so she went into it with guns blazing and made all sorts of rules that even she had trouble sticking to.”

“I can’t imagine that, either!”

“She really hated it, too!  And she was pregnant with Jon that year and she really struggled with being the mean teacher.  She just didn’t have it in her and the mean teacher act didn’t last until Christmas.”

“What happened?”

“It’s pretty funny, the way I remember it.  Not funny at the time…but she had a little bit of a meltdown in the classroom  when one of the boys told her she didn’t have to be so mean.”

“Oh, no!  That's terrible!”

“Yeah.  She came home and told me that she just burst into tears right in the classroom!  About the last thing you ever want to do!  Because she was pregnant, the kids all felt sorry for her and she told me a couple of the girls ran over to her and brought her some tissues and were patting her on the back and the boy…he felt awful and kept apologizing to her.”

“Oh my God!  I can see it…but, wow.  That’s not the woman I saw yesterday.”

“Well, that was a long time ago, Pam.  Even though she always knew she wanted to be an art teacher, it still took her a few years to find her own way in the classroom.”

It’s getting to be lunch time and it’s also getting pretty hot, so I say we should take a break and go in the house for lunch.  I don’t want him overdoing it.  I pour him a glass of iced tea and fix sandwiches and when I join him at the table, he smiles at me and squeezes my hand.

“You and Jim…Mel and I are so happy…the way everything’s worked out.”

“Oh, Steve!  That’s so sweet!”

“He didn’t talk a lot about it, but I knew from what little he did say…he was in love with you for a long time.”

His words take me by surprise and I feel tears stinging at the corner of my eyes.  It’s been a while since I’ve thought about it, but it only takes Steve’s few words to bring it all back.  My life…I can’t even think of how different things would be now.

“Jim…we worried a little about him.  I mean, he was a good kid…a little bit of a hell-raiser, but he was always the charmer, too, and if he got into trouble, he never failed to charm his way out of it.”

“He’s still doing that!”

“He never really had a clear idea of what he wanted to do, you know?  He was good at a lot of different things…sports...writing…”

“The trumpet…”

“Oh, Jesus God, no!" 

We both laugh.

“He found his way with you, Pam.”

“Oh, Steve…”

“It’s true.  I saw it the first night you came to the house for dinner.  It was just like I told him it would be…just like it was for me and Mel.”

“You know, I don’t think I even know how you two met.”

“Really?  Well, let’s start on your flowers and I’ll tell you the story.”

He tells me about how he came to Buffalo in the early seventies, working on his Masters degree, wanting to be a high school principal, organizing and campaigning for McGovern, and exploring the city.  He tells me he was far too serious then, like the typical angry young man, but there was a lot to be angry about back then.  I tell him he’s mellowed and he says that he can still get fired up, but back then, he had a lot of dreams about how to change the world.  He says he was on campus that Sunday, working on a student activist newsletter, when some fellow students told him he should get out, enjoy the sunshine, and head over to Allentown.  There’s an art festival going on, hadn’t he heard?

~~

I’d explored the neighborhood a bit when I first moved to Buffalo and spent a few afternoons playing chess at a bar called Nietzche’s, listening to stray blues players noodle around…jamming and had a wild night or two at a place called Mulligan’s Brick Bar.  So I knew the neighborhood, but I was still blown away by this art festival going on in the middle of the Allentown streets.  I checked out some of the booths, grabbed a hot dog and a beer and just wandered.  I listened to an old harp player with a basket at his feet and threw a dollar in before moving on.  I stopped at a booth full of small wooden boxes, all different shapes and finishes, and I picked one out for my keys and loose change (okay, Steve, whatever) and while I was waiting to pay the artist for it, I turned back out to the street and...there she was.  I’ve always said it was like I was hit by a thunderbolt and it’s true.  I was afraid it had fused my sandals to the street because for a minute, I couldn’t even move. 

She’s across the street, a few booths down, gazing at some weird acrylic paintings.  She’s not very tall and her hair…her hair reaches her waist in the back, pulled into a loose ponytail with a white ribbon that I stare at so long, I can almost feel it coming loose in my fingertips.  It’s silly but true, how there seemed to be a light all around her, even in the bright sun.  I see her in profile, with one finger at her lips and it’s like I’m being pulled by a string.  I set the box down, not even interested now, and I walk slowly across the street. 

I stand a bit away from her and watch as she moves around the outside of the booth, taking time to study each painting.  I take my eyes off her for just a second to look at the first painting she was studying.  It’s titled “Hidden Village” and it’s strange…a bit cartoonish and I can’t see the attraction.  I want to hear her voice telling me what she sees, what she likes about it.  I’m still hanging back when the artist greets her.  I move a little closer and I listen, learning that they know each other slightly from school, he’s seen her around campus.  He’s a grad student at Buff State, where she’s an undergrad.  I hear something about getting a drink sometime and I am not liking the sound of any of this at all, so I move a little closer.  I don’t even think about how it’s a little creepy, what I’m doing.  I just know I want to get her away from this guy, I feel like I have to protect her.  I hear him asking what she likes about the painting and she tells him “it looks like a dream I have” and he tells her that it’s funny she says that because he paints from his dreams and all I know is this can’t go any further.  He’s tall and blond and a little too smooth…just this side of sleazy and I don’t like the way he’s looking at her at all.  He’s so wrong for her!  I can tell just by the look in his eyes that this guy, this artist, he can’t even see the light around her.  This has to stop and I finally make a move.  I ask the guy, ‘hey, do you have one of these already framed?’ and the artist, eager to make a sale, steps away from her.  I keep one eye on her while I make the transaction.  I can’t believe I’m doing this and I’m thinking there are going to be a lot of peanut butter sandwiches in my immediate future. 

By the time I finish, she’s moved to the next booth, lightly touching the collection of metal sculptures and I move to her side, holding the painting in front of me.  I’m close enough to her that I can smell her hair and hear the silver bracelets on her arm jangling together.  I’m aware that I feel too tall, too gangly, and so awkward, as I notice her hands…small but with long, graceful, beautiful fingers and a simple silver band on her left hand.  My heart drops when I think she might be married, and then she notices me standing next to her.  For the first time, I see her whole face turned up to me and I get blasted by the thunderbolt a second time.  I can’t even describe how beautiful she was.  Her eyes…her beautiful skin…I’m dead in the water.  She smiles at me and…bury me at sea…she says, ‘oh, you bought that painting!  I really love that one” and I say ‘yes, I saw you looking at it” and she laughs.

We’re standing in the middle of Allen Street and I’ve gone deaf to everything but the sound of her laughter.  The only thing preventing me from making an absolute fool out of myself by dropping to my knees and promising my eternal love and devotion, is that small silver band on her finger.  If she’s married I’m going to hurl myself over Niagara Falls and not even bother with the barrel, so I ask her.  She laughs again (I know she’s laughing at me and I don’t even care) and…sweet merciful Jesus, she says no.  She says she was engaged but broke it off recently and she feels naked without a ring there.  She’d bought it just that day at Allentown from a booth on Delaware.  I ask her name and she says, ‘Melinda but everyone calls me Mel’ and I repeat it after her.  Melinda.  I tell her my name and she points at the painting and asks me if I bought it for her and I say ‘no, but if you tell me the dream, I’ll let you borrow it on the weekends.’ And she raises her eyebrows at me, teases me about eavesdropping, and laughs some more and I feel that light that’s all around her…it’s starting to spread over me, too.  She says it’ll cost me dinner if I want to hear about the dream, but it’s a good dream and totally worth it. 

I take her to this little Italian place, Santasiero’s.  The menu’s written on the wall, the wine’s served in little jelly jars, Sinatra’s on the jukebox, and there’s a candle dripping down an old bottle of chianti on the table. She tells me the dream while she looks at the painting propped up on the empty chair beside her. I start to like that painting a little, the more she talks about this house in the woods she always dreams about and by the time she asks me about my dreams, I really like the painting, but I’m in love with her.  I’m just totally in love with her and when she asks me up to the third floor studio with the creaky floorboards and the noisy neighbors, I say I’ve changed my mind.  The painting belongs with her, she should have it, I tell her.  She says, 'okay, but you can visit it on the weekends' and laughs.  I say, 'I plan to visit every weekend and maybe more, if you’ll let me, because I’m in love with you.'

~~

We were close to finishing the setup when a quiet girl with glasses named Jane, who had been kind of following me around for the last hour, asked me to help her hang her painting.  I asked if she had her title card ready and she nodded.  Then she handed me her painting and my heart stopped.  I couldn’t believe the girl standing in front of me had done the painting I held in my hands.  It was a watercolor of three small children playing on the front porch of an old house and it was insanely good.  Everyone kind of has this idea that watercolors are easy because nearly everyone remembers playing with watercolors as a kid, but to do watercolors well...it takes a lot of skill to get it right.  But this was pure, raw talent and I studied her painting, admiring the shades of color in the children's hair that hinted at movement and late afternoon sun.  It was like a dreamy photograph and the colors were soft but vibrant.  I asked who the children in the picture were and she said she didn’t know.  I cocked my head at her and she said the picture came from a dream she’d had.  She thought it might have been a memory from when she was little and played with her sister and her cousin, but she wasn’t really sure.

“Do you paint a lot?” I asked her.

“Yeah, I like to draw, too.  Mrs. Halpert says if I want to, she’ll help me when I’m in high school.  You know, like after school and stuff.”

“Jane, this is really good.  I mean, I can’t believe someone your age did this painting.  It’s amazing.”

She blushed about nine shades of red and asked if I was serious.

“I’m dead serious.  Are you kidding?  You really don’t know how good this is?”

“Well, I like doing it and it comes pretty easy to me.   I guess I didn’t think…”

“It’s wonderful.  Really beautiful, Jane.  I love it.”

The look on her face.  I’ll never forget it.  It was like I had reached up and plucked the moon out of the sky and handed it to her, just like that.  And it was so easy to do…to encourage her, tell her she was good. 

The next night at the fair when she took first place, she ran up to me pulling her her mom by the hand and introduced us and she was waving her ribbon around, so proud.  I told her mom how talented Jane was, how beautiful this watercolor was.  Her mom thanked me and told me that my mother-in-law had really sparked Jane’s interest this year.  She said she’d dabbled around before, but her interest in art had turned serious this year and she seemed intent on pursuing it.  I congratulated Jane and shook her mother’s hand and as I drove home that night, I was smiling the entire way, thinking of Jane. 

I was still smiling when I came into the house to find Jim sitting on the floor of the nursery putting together the baby’s crib.  

“Hey.”

“Hey, what are you all smiley about?”

“At the art fair…I met this girl.”

“Yeah?”

“She painted the most amazing watercolor, Jim.  I couldn’t believe it.  She doesn’t even realize how good she is, but she was so excited and it just…made me happy.”

He motions for me to bend down and kiss him and when I start to lose my balance, he catches me and lowers me down to his lap.  I wrap my arms around his neck and take his ball cap off and wind my fingers through his hair, kissing him.

“Wow.  Maybe you should go to art fairs more often.”

“Yeah, maybe I should.”

I was in the front yard watering the flowers when she came home from her parents’ that Monday afternoon.  I’d really missed her and couldn’t wait to have her back home with me.  I had dinner all planned - steaks for the grill - and I’d bought a bottle of sparkling cider for her.  When she pulled the car into the driveway, I waved and shut the hose off.   I jogged around to open the car door for her and she held her arms up for me to pull her out. I bent down so she could put her arms around my neck, and when I got her to her feet, I think she actually said, “Oof.”

“Look at you!” I laughed.  It looked like the baby had almost doubled in size just over the weekend.

“I popped,” she said, and she sounded so pitiful, I put my arms around her and kissed her neck.  We had a couple months to go, but she finally really looked pregnant and just…adorable.

“I really missed you,” I told her.

“Well, you can’t miss me now!  I’m everywhere!”

“Stop!  You look great.”

“I’m enormous.”

“Tired?”

“Exhausted.”

“Why don’t you go out to the patio and put your feet up?  I was just going to start getting dinner ready.”

“What are we having?”

“Steak, baked potatoes…it’s all ready to go on the grill.”

“God, that sounds great!  I’m starving!” 

I swear, it was like the visit to her mom’s had lit her appetite on fire.  I’d never seen her eat like this!  It seemed like every time I looked up at work, I’d catch her coming back from the kitchen with something…like a yogurt…or a candy bar…or an orange…or a bag of chips.  And that was all in one day!  When I caught her staring off into space with her chin in her hand late one afternoon and IM’d her, she’d jumped at the alert. 

JHalpert:  What are you thinking about over there?

PHalpert:  Jerky.

JHalpert:  Hey, it’s just a question.

PHalpert:  No, beef jerky.

PHalpert:  Oh my God, I’m daydreaming about beef jerky. 

One day last week she said, ‘hey, how about going out for lunch today?’ and I reminded her that we’d packed lunches and she admitted she’d eaten my sandwich when I was on a conference call in Michael’s office.  At 10:00.  This morning, I walked into the kitchen for coffee and heard her lecturing Stanley about his diabetes as he was reaching for the last donut in the box.  He gave up and walked away, shaking his head.  I’m not saying she doesn’t care about Stanley’s health, but she was eyeballing that donut the whole time.  When he left, she took a huge bite before anyone else tried to claim it, and she turned to me with powdered sugar all over her mouth and said around the donut, “I think it’s free cone day at Baskin-Robbins.” 

When she asked what I was laughing at, little bits of powdered sugar flew out of her mouth.

“Watch it!  That donut’s trying to escape!”  She snorted and had to cover her mouth with her hand.

“Nice, Beesly.  Is this how you’re going to behave when I take you away this weekend?”

“Ohhh, so it’s a place where I have to be on my best behavior, huh?”

“Are you asking me if it’s a place so fancy you have to keep your food in your mouth while you’re chewing?  The answer is yes, Pam.” 

“Hmm…are you taking me to the White House?”

We’d been playing this game ever since she came back from visiting her parents.  I’d been teasing her with fake clues about where we were going and she played along, but not knowing was driving her a little crazy.  It hadn’t been easy keeping it from her all this time and even though we were leaving later that afternoon, she wasn’t letting up.  She was pretty excited.

“Nope.  Not the White House.”

“How am I going to know what to pack?  Are you going to give me a list, like Michael?  Do I need a snorkel and tap shoes?”

“I was planning on packing for you.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No…what?  You don’t think I could?”

“You probably could…but what if I don’t like what you pack?”

“I guess you’re just going to have to trust me.”

~~

In the month that had passed between Mother’s Day and the impending Father’s Day weekend, there were two panic attacks that ruffled the relative tranquility in the Halpert house: one mine, one hers.

Mine came shortly after Mother’s Day, when I started to check online for hotels in Buffalo for the Allentown weekend.  The first four I looked at were booked solid.  I didn’t want to stay all the way out by the airport or all the way out by the huge, new University of Buffalo campus (how times had changed since my father’s day), and I didn’t want to stay in any old fleabag, that’s for sure.  I couldn’t even remember where my college buddies and I had stayed…the Sunrise Motel, maybe?...but it didn’t matter, because I wasn’t taking her there, either.  I started to panic because I’d cancelled my reservations in Vermont and it wasn’t looking good for reservations in Buffalo.   What if I couldn’t find a hotel?  I didn’t even want to think about having to change plans – this was the perfect weekend for us - but my mind was already racing with alternatives.  New York City?  Too crazy.  Boston?  Five hours in the car instead of four plus three times as expensive and no Allentown.  I actually thought, ‘maybe I could take her to the White House’ then shook my head over how ridiculous that sounded.  I decided to call my parents because they knew the city so much better than I did. 

I took my cell with me to the backyard to try and avoid the pregnant woman with the bionic hearing I was living with.  Before I had a chance to enter the speed dial number, her voice came from the open kitchen window.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You look sneaky.  What are you up to?”

“God, Pam!  I was making a phone call!”

“To who?”

“That’s ‘whom’ and it’s none of your business!”

She thinks I’m the one who can’t stand to be left out of a secret?  She was on full alert and totally relentless.   She stepped out to the patio and I closed the phone, exasperated, and rolled my eyes at her.  She was looking at me like I was just going to give in and tell her.

“You’re going to ruin it.  I’m trying to do something nice here. Something fun.  For you.”

“Something fun, huh?  Are we going to Six Flags?”

“Yep!  We’re going to Six Flags!  You’re going to meet that little bald guy you like so much and I’m going to stuff you full of cotton candy and corn dogs and take you on the Catapult.  Doesn’t that sound fun for someone who’s almost seven months pregnant?”

She gave me a look of fake disappointment and muttered a “geeeez” under her breath, but she wasn’t done yet. 

“Hershey!  We’re going to the Hershey factory!”

“You’re right!  It’s the Hershey factory!  Chocolate’s fun, right?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I was calling my folks, but I think I’m just going to drive over there instead.”

“Can I come?”

“No!  Pam, come on!”

She laughed at how she was torturing me, then put her arms around my waist and squeezed.

“You’re so easy.  Say hi to them for me, okay?”

I got into the car and mentally added “Hershey factory” to the short and stupid list of alternatives. 

It was my dad who saved me from taking her to Altoona to see The Haunted Wedding Dress attraction.  He had a friend from grad school who had bought an old mansion close to Allentown, completely renovated it and turned it into a hotel.  It sounded pretty good and I said a silent prayer when he went to get his address book.  I poked my head into the family room to say hello to my mother and found her with a student, surrounded by sketches and brushes.

“Oh!  Hi, Jim!”

“Sorry, Mom, I…”

“No, it’s okay, we’re just finishing.  Jim, this is Jane.”

“Jane?  You’re the famous watercolorist Pam told me about, right?”

She blushed and bent her head down, pushing her glasses up on her nose at the same time.

“She told you about me?”

“Oh, definitely.  She said you were really talented.  Congratulations on the ribbon!”

My mother spoke up.  “Pam’s an artist, too, Jane.  She knows what she’s talking about.”

“She really loved your painting, Jane,” I told her and I got to see the smile that had made my wife so happy. 

My dad called for me from the living room and I excused myself, telling her it was nice meeting her.  He was still on the phone, but motioned for me to sit down.

“Uh huh.  Paul, that’s great, they’re going to love it.  Okay, hang on….”

He covered the mouthpiece and asked me what nights we were going to be in Buffalo and I told him Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, checking out Sunday.  He relayed the message.

“Paul, I can’t thank you enough… Okay… They’re really looking forward to it…I owe you one…Okay, I’ll tell him…say hello to Maggie for me, okay?...I’ll tell her you said that and maybe we’ll see you next year…okay…bye.”

“Well?”

“You’re all set.  You have a room at The Mansion on Delaware for three nights.”

“Oh, Dad, you saved my life!”

“I’ll remember that, but it was nothing.  He’s a good friend and he was happy to do it.  I guess they always hold one room out, just in case.  In case of what, I’m not sure, but it’s yours now.”

“Great!  What’s the place like?”

“Get online and see for yourself.  Paul said to tell you to check out their website.”

“Can I do it here?  Pam’s not letting me get away with anything.”

“That’s my girl!”

“Remember me, Dad?  Your son?”

“What can I say, Jim?”  He shrugged his shoulders.

“Wow.  I had my suspicions you liked her better, but…”

“Computer’s in your old bedroom.”

As soon as the webpage loaded, my excitement for the weekend went to overload.  The place was gorgeous, just a step from Allentown, and it was completely renovated with a mix of antiques and modern amenities, and I knew Pam was going to love it.  I could just imagine her face when she saw it. 

“Dad, the place is amazing.  Thank you.”

“Will Pam like it?”

“She’s going to love it.  Oh, and if it even matters, I'm sure I'm going to love it, too.”

He clapped me on the back, chuckling.  “You know, son, they say lightning never strikes twice, but I have a good feeling about this.”

“I do, too, Dad.”

~~

Pam’s panic attack came along with the mail one day when we were coming home from work.  I was carrying a couple bags of groceries and she grabbed the mail as we walked in the front door.  I went straight to the kitchen to set the bags down and put the ice cream in the freezer.  I heard her from the front hall.

“Oh my God!”

“What’s wrong?” I yelled.

She walked into the kitchen carrying her school’s summer-fall class schedule. 

“Pam, what’s the matter?”

“Looks like I’m taking two semesters off.  I can’t believe I didn’t think of this.”

“What?”

“Jim, when is the baby due?”

“August 7th.”

“And when do you think fall classes start?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.  They start August 14th."

She slumped down into the kitchen chair and put her head in her hands.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think about this when I took the spring off.”

“Are you saying you shouldn’t have?  Because…”

“No, no.  I couldn’t have done it.  I needed the break, but…fuck.”

I sat down at the kitchen table with her and took her hands away from her face and held them.

“Pam, it’s just one…”

“It’s a whole year.  One more whole year behind.  I’m so stupid.”

“Don’t say that.  You’re not stupid and there’s nothing...”

“I know there’s nothing I can do about it!  But I wasn’t even thinking that far ahead.  I didn’t even realize it.”

“Maybe you can…”

But she didn’t even wait for me to finish.  She got up from the table and walked upstairs and in a few minutes, I heard the shower running.  I debated on staying put or going upstairs.  Clearly, she wasn’t in the mood to talk about it, but sometimes, I have a hard time letting things go.  In the past, normal disagreements, fights, had escalated a few times because she just didn’t want to hear anymore of my ideas or plans about how things should be or could be.  I pushed and she withdrew a little and I pushed a little harder and then she’d push back hard and that would put an end to it.  Then we’d both withdraw to lick our wounds and try to remember that we loved each other.  I couldn’t help it…it was hard for me to see her upset about anything and I always wanted to fix it, make it right.  She told me, ‘you don’t always have to ride in on your white horse and save me, you know.’  That kind of hurt, but what I guess she was saying was that if she was mad or upset, sometimes she just wanted to be that, at least for a while. 

I just wanted to check on her, make sure she was okay.  I walked upstairs and the bathroom door was open a little and I heard her crying in the shower.  It took everything I had to fight my first instinct, but I walked down the hall to the bedroom and started to get undressed.  I sat on the end of the bed in my boxers, trying to think about how the next few months were going to change everything between us.  I knew she was looking forward to the baby, looking forward to being a mom and to us raising this child together.  We’d talked about it so many times, laughing about silly stuff and talking through the serious stuff.

Work was…work.  She’d been able to tolerate it more easily because she’d had school and I’d been able to tolerate it because I had her, but neither of us, if we were being honest, was really happy there.  I felt like I was right on the edge of something…ready to open a door or turn a corner.  It felt like the electrified weight of the air before a storm.  The road was taking a sharp, blind curve and the time for silly impulses and not very well thought out decisions was over.  I wondered where we were headed, where this road was leading us.  And not just us…it wasn’t going to be just me and her anymore.  And in that moment, even though I was looking forward to August 7th more than anything, I felt like I was losing something.  The silly, stupid, crazy, funny, weird and wonderful bubble that existed around us was about to float away. 

I laid back on the bed and let the story of us run like a movie through my head.  Pam in that blue dress… her face when I came back from Stamford…my heart breaking, alone in a strange, new apartment…her hair brushing my hand at her back when we danced at our wedding…holding her up on her wobbly ankles while we skated…her face, her hair, her skin underneath me for the first time…lying in bed all day on a Sunday and laughing about nothing…her smile the first time she said she loved me…her voice telling me ‘keep still, Jim!’ while she sketched me, both of us naked and laughing…her eyes filled with tears when she saw the terrace off this bedroom…both of us crying when we said our vows…her skipping around the yard saying ‘this is all ours!’

That’s how she found me when she walked in, wrapped in a towel that barely covered her.  She laid down next to me and I pulled her close to my side.  She wrapped her arm around me and after a few minutes, she kissed my neck softly and moved to my ear and brushed my hair back and stroked my face with the tips of her fingers.  And she kissed my shoulder and my chest and her hand roamed everywhere, just touching me like she wanted to make sure I was there.  I felt that heaviness in the air again, but it was different, and she gathered it around us with her mouth at my hip, her damp hair trailing down my chest.  We made love in a sort of desperation, me being too careful, her being more urgent, but both of us locking up tight and drawing a veil between us and the world.

We stayed tangled up together for a long time, quiet, until she broke the silence, in a small but very sure voice.

“We’re going to be okay.”

“Yeah, we are.” 

~~  

I left work a couple hours ahead of her to come home and pack for both of us.  I folded up shorts and a few maternity tops, underwear, and a new sundress I’d bought her as a surprise.  A sweater, in case she got cold in the evening.  I packed her makeup bag and her hair stuff.  Her sneakers and a pair of sandals.  My bag took only a few minutes to pack and I grabbed our toothbrushes and a barrette, my razor and shaving cream.  I had it all ready to go when I heard the front door open as I was zipping the bags closed.

“Kellie made up a little basket of goodies for us for the trip!” she yelled up to me.

“Thank God!”  I yelled down.  “I’d hate for you to go a few hours without food!”

She was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, a huge smile on her face.

“Ready?” I asked her.

“Ready,” she said. 

Chapter title (and Jim singalong) is from "Stay" by Dave Matthews Band.  Loved by me, owned by them.

He's downstairs in the kitchen, singing along with the radio...you and me...you and me...just wasting time...I was kissing you...you were kissing me, love and I smile as I lower myself down into the rocker in the baby's room.   All the tiny baby clothes are washed and folded and stacked.  I smile again, thinking of how he'd stuck his big hand inside one of the tiny tee shirts, like it was a hand puppet, making the baby's voice, making kissing sounds as his fingers touched my face.  That silliness, his tenderness...I can't wait to share that with our baby.

Not too much longer, I think.  Maybe just a few days until I'm rocking in this chair with my baby in my arms.  I'm not scared.  Jim will be there, my mom is coming tomorrow and she'll stay for as long as I need her.  Maybe just a few days until I can actually look into my baby's eyes, until I can see the little person who is coming to live with us.  The last months have gone by so fast.  We still don't know if we're having a boy or a girl - after that first ultrasound, Jim convinced me it was fate and now I'm glad.  We don't know if Natalie Jane or Matthew Stephen will be coming home with us and it really doesn't matter.  My mother says it will be like love at first sight, that I won't believe how hopelessly and completely I'll fall in love.  I think back to Allentown and how I fell in love with him again for the millionth time and soon there will be another person to love that much.  I can't imagine it - another smile that will make my heart catch, another laugh that will melt me, another hand to hold that will make me sigh with contentment.  So much love in one life, I think, and I can feel my heart opening up and making room for more.

~~

Thursday - Pam              

We head north on 81 and when we cross over the New York state line, I start guessing.  Every town we pass by, every roadside attraction and landmark, I ask if that's where we're going. 

"Binghamton?"

"It is the carousel capital of the world, Pam," he says, reading the sign.  "But it's not Binghamton.  Maybe if you're good on this trip we can come back another time."

"My father always said that and he really just meant ‘no.'" 

"Well, I'm personally not too thrilled about going around and around in a circle like that.  Makes me kind of...pukey."

"Good to know, Halpert.  Looks like I'll be the one taking Helga on the merry-go-round."

"Stop calling the baby Helga, Pam.  That's just...weird."

"Oh, but Herbert Halpert is totally fine?"

"Yes!  Herb Halpert and the Scrantonicity Brass has a very nice ring to it, Pam."

"Is Kevin on drums?"

"Obviously."

We pass a sign for Chittenango, site of the annual Wizard of Oz festival, according to the sign.

"We're going to the Wizard of Oz festival!  Did you pack my ruby slippers?"

"And your little dog, too!" he cackles.

"Really?"

"No, Pam.  Not really."

When we change routes from 81 to 90 westbound, we stop near Syracuse to take a break and have a stretch and then it's back on the road.  I tease him in a kid's voice, "are we there yet?" and "how much longer, Dad?" and he scowls at me and I tell him to get used to it.  It won't be long before he'll be hearing that and then, before he knows it, it will be "he's touching me!" and he interrupts to correct me with, "or she's touching me!"  Right, right...could be she, I say.  I want to know if he's going to threaten to turn the car around when that starts up and he says he's about to start threatening right now, so I need to behave.

We pass the time making up stories about Dwight's childhood and then we start making up stories about the people in the cars that pass us.  I feed him grapes from Kellie's goodie basket and he fiddles with the radio.  I change positions a lot:  feet curled under me, feet on the dashboard, one leg curled up, one foot out the window, seat reclined.  We pass a sign that says "Buffalo-Niagara Falls - 20 miles" and I ask how much longer and he says we'll be there in about 20 minutes.

"We're going to Buffalo?"

"Yep!"

"Really?  You're serious?"

"Totally."

"Wow.  I'm...swooning?"

"Way to keep an open mind, Beesly.  Have you ever even been there?"

"Nope, can't say that I have."

"So what are you basing this negative opinion on?"

"Mmm...snow, cold, nothing remarkable....hey, your folks met in Buffalo!  They went to school there!"

His head whips around to look at me as he asks, "How did you know that?"

"Your dad told me the story when we were planting the garden."

"What'd he say?  What'd he tell you?"

"Jesus, Jim, calm down!  Is it some kind of national secret how they met?  Is your dad in the Witness Protection Program?"

"No...no, I was just curious about...what he told you because...sometimes he embellishes a little or changes stuff around.  So...what'd he say?"

"He met Mel at some art festival and he fell instantly, madly, deeply in love with her.   Your dad's a pretty romantic guy, you know."

"Yeah...he's something, alright.  So...see?  Buffalo's not all bad.  We're going to have a good time."

We're both quiet for a few minutes and I'm watching the Buffalo skyline come into view and we're passing old abandoned factories and grain elevators and rail yards and I can't imagine what the hell we're going to do for three days.  Maybe we can go to Niagara Falls.  Mel told me about an art gallery near her college that was wonderful.  Plus, the thought of real chicken wings starts making my stomach growl, and I put my head back and start to close my eyes when he grabs my knee.

"Pam...Pam, look!"  He's pointing and I'm asking "What?  What?"

"Look!"

He's pointing at an event sign over the highway that says ALLENTOWN ART FESTIVAL NEXT EXIT and grinning at me like a crazy person.  I turn back just in time to see the sign change to say WELCOME ARTISTS!

"Oh my God.  Jim."

"It's pretty cool, right?  It's so much fun, Pam, you're going to love it."

"It's where they met, where your father got hit by lightning."

"Thunderbolt, Pam.  So he told you about that, huh?"

"Yeah, he did."

I scoot up onto my heels and wrap my arms around his neck and kiss his face until he tells me to quit, laughing, saying he's trying to drive.

"You're a pretty romantic guy, yourself, Jim Halpert."

"Yeah?  Well, I have been having this ridiculous craving for chicken wings, so that's part of it, too."

"Really?  Me too!"

Thursday night - Jim

I remember her covering her mouth in shock and sheer giddiness when the butler - not the bellman, the butler - came down the front steps of the mansion to greet us and take our bags.  The next hour was taken up with explorations and exclamations and trying out the bed and the chair and running the water in the tub and oohing and aahing over the little soaps and the small vase of snapdragons on the bathroom counter.  We napped for a bit and kissed for a bit and she told me she was hungry.  For chicken wings.  That's my girl, I said, and told her we were going to the place where chicken wings were invented.  She fluffed and powdered a little and the night was so warm and clear we decided to walk down Delaware Avenue to The Anchor Bar.

It was just like I remembered, like it could have been a scene out of The Godfather.  The place was packed but they seated us right away at a small table in the bar, so the "Little Mommy" didn't have to stand and wait.  The waitress, Millie, asked where we were from and if we were here for Allentown and we said yes.  Pam told her the Reader's Digest version of the thunderbolt and that I'd surprised her by bringing her here for her first time.  Millie proclaimed that to be the "most sweetest thing she'd ever heard" and yelled over to the bartender, "Ya hear that, Anthony?" and since he hadn't, she stepped up to the bar to share our story with Anthony and all the regulars.  We grinned at each other like idiots as a chorus of "awwws" rose from the bar.  I sipped my beer and held her hand across the table and when Millie returned with our dinner, she had another beer for me.  I told her I didn't order another beer and she said it was on the house, for the romantic boy, the father-to-be.  I thanked her and Pam winked at me and told me Millie was flirting with me.  Very funny, I told her.  Millie's about 119 years old. 

After Millie cleared our plates, we held hands again, and I reached across the table to kiss her and ask her how she liked the weekend so far.  Before she had a chance to answer, the bar erupted with clapping and yelling and Millie arrived at the table with an enormous chunk of tiramisu for Pam and a shot glass full of something clear and a cigar for me.  Anthony yelled from behind the bar, "It's grappa...for the Papa!" and all the men laughed.  Pam said ‘of course you have to drink it!' while she was busy tearing into her dessert.  I raised my eyebrows at her and the shot glass to the men at the bar, and drained it, to much applause and tinkling of glasses.  I reached across the table for another kiss and she licked my lips for a taste of the sweetness still clinging there. 

Things go a little fuzzy after this, because there was a second shot, but I do remember Millie lighting the cigar for me and Pam laughing at me as I leaned back in my chair and puffed, all smug with happiness.  I remember her eyes sparkling in the dim light.  I remember feeling like the happiest, luckiest, proudest son of a bitch in the world and shaking my head over it.  I remember her saying she was glad we didn't know about the baby yet and she was happy we were going to be surprised and it was so good to be away together, wasn't it? 

Yes, it was.

There was a cab ride home and giggling on the walk to the room and I remember only her soft skin and kisses and murmurs before we both fell asleep.

Friday morning - Pam

We had breakfast in bed the next morning, like the Trumps.  One of us had a few aspirin with his coffee.  I teased him, but not too much, because we'd had so much fun.  The long windows in the room were open and it looked like it was going to be a perfect day, sunny and warm.  The morning paper had a full-page layout of Allentown and a detailed history of the festival.  I read bits and pieces to Jim while he read the sports page and I started to get excited for the next day.  It was exactly as Steve had described it:  all different kinds of art and artists and music and food and I really couldn't wait.   

"What are we doing today?" I asked him.

"I have a few ideas that I think you'll like."

"Yeah?  Tell me."

He pulled me onto his chest and the baby started going nuts.

"Whoa!  Settle down there, Ralphie!"

"That's crazy!  He was quiet all night!  I slept really good."

"You feeling okay?"

"Yeah, I feel great.  Tell me what we're doing...even the baby's excited."

"Well, I thought we'd take the Halpert Historical Tour."

"Really?  Wow, that sounds...boring," I teased.

"Boring?  Oh, Pam.  You scoffed at Buffalo and look.  You're having fun so far, right?"

"Okay..."

"You wanted chicken wings and I got you chicken wings.  Original, authentic chicken wings."

"You did do that."

"Okay, then.  Have a little faith, please.  This is going to be fun."

It's a little unsettling how well he packed my suitcase for this trip.  He thought of everything and even bought me a new dress to wear, but for today, it's shorts and tennis shoes, because we're going on a mini-tour of the city.

First stop, he tells me, is the Elmwood Strip.  Elmwood is one street over from Delaware, but we get in the car because we're going to be doing some walking and he doesn't want me to poop out on him too early.  We park the car at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the setting is so pretty - it's at the edge of a park dotted with couples and families on blankets, strolling, playing catch.  And there's a lake with ducks and swans and I get a strange sense of déjà vu about this place, it's so familiar.  I look up at him and he reads my mind.  His parents' wedding pictures were taken here, he tells me and I have the strangest sense of time bending, imagining them here on their wedding day and remembering Mel's painting in her kitchen.  This isn't the right place, I know, but her painting feels like...here.  Maybe she was remembering this place when she was painting it, after she was struck by her own thunderbolt of inspiration.

 Before we go into the gallery, Jim takes my hand and leads me to the street.  I ask where we're going as we wait for the light to change, and he says ‘that's where my mom went to school' as he nods toward a gorgeous red brick building.

"We're going there?"

"I have orders from my mother and it's a surprise for you," he says.

We wander through the main building, Rockwell Hall, and then exit the rear to head to the Upton Hall Art Gallery.  I see a huge banner draping the entrance:  Our Legacy:  Teach, Learn, Create.  We enter the cool, quiet building and the exhibit is a retrospective of years and years of art education at the college.  It starts with black and white photos from classrooms and studios on campus, teachers guiding students at easels, looms, and pottery wheels.  The pictures gradually turn to color, interspersed with actual pieces created by students and the connections are made from student to teacher to new student, to new teacher.  I watch the fashions and the hair styles change as the pictures move through time, until Jim stops me at one large group photograph and asks, ‘see anyone you know?'

I peer more closely at the photo and I see her, off to the side, standing next to a painting I recognize from her bedroom, a still life of a table with small glasses filled with red wine and an old bottle, dripping with candle wax as the flame glows brightly.  Two sets of hands, joined lightly, rest together on the table.  I look back at Jim and say, ‘it's her' and he says, ‘yeah, look how young she is.'  She's so young and her long, dark hair is pulled to the side in a ponytail with a ribbon and her face is so open, so ready, so proud.  The camera has captured her just at that moment before she starts building her life.  She's in love, but Jon and Jim aren't even a flicker at the edge of her mind yet.  Stretched out before her are years of students she hasn't yet met, students she's going to touch and influence and inspire.  Like landmarks along the way, I imagine her cradling a baby Jon and later, a baby Jim in one arm while holding a paintbrush in the other.  I realize that all the hope and passion I see in her face has come to pass.  She's lived her dream in the quietest, most satisfying way. 

"A friend of hers from school called to tell her about this.  I have orders to take a picture of you with...the picture.  Is that weird?"

"No," I say.  "It's not weird."  I smooth my hair down, straighten my blouse over my belly, and stand next to the picture.

"Say...chicken wings!" he tells me, but instead I say, ‘I love you' and he takes the picture.

Friday afternoon - Jim

We worked our way down the mile of the Elmwood Strip that extends south from the art gallery (which she loved) and Buff State.  I drove us about halfway and parked so we'd never be too far away from the car, in case she got tired.  We wandered in and out of the little shops, sidestepped the sidewalk cafes jutting out at irregular spots.  We bought a book on Buffalo's art and architecture (for her), I picked up a few hard-to-find albums at an old record shop, the baby got a stuffed buffalo and we bought Allentown tee shirts for all the parents.  We had a long, leisurely lunch at Cole's where I listened to her chatter about everything we'd done so far and how she couldn't believe the festival hadn't even started yet.

I watched her for signs that she might be annoyed with me for bringing her here - she was always reminding me that even when I think I'm being so slick, I'm really quite obvious.  But there was nothing but genuine happiness on her face and enthusiasm in her voice, so it was good.  If she had thoughts that I was trying to restart her creative engine, she was showing no signs of it.  I was relieved and thrilled that I didn't really have to do or say anything...the city seemed to be working its own magic on her.  She was delighted with everything, including me.

After lunch, we took a driving tour of the west side of town, inching the car down narrow, congested Grant Street, full of Italian markets and florists and fresh fruit stands.  Delivery trucks were double parked and the horns were blaring, arms waving wildly, punctuating broken English and rapid-fire Italian.  I looked over at my wife and she was looking out the open window like she was watching a play, hands clasped tightly in her lap. 

"This is so great!" she tells me.  "Let's get out!"

So we wandered there for a while and had some gelato, and she was serenaded by the old men outside the café, sipping tiny cups of espresso.  She blushed and clapped her hands and right about then I was feeling like Einstein, Charles Atlas, and Valentino all rolled into one.

We headed toward Allentown, but some of the streets were already blocked off to traffic - only artists setting up were allowed to pass through.  I did manage to make it down Virginia Place, though, and pulled the car to the curb. 

"Is this...?"

"Yep, this was where she lived.  Dad told you, right?"

"Yeah, he said the floor boards creaked and the neighbors were..."

"...loud and the hot water only worked half the time."

"Yep," she laughs.

We stepped out to stand on the curb and looked up at that turret, the third floor. 

"My mother only talks about the light.  She said it was amazing."

She was staring up at the old house, at the long narrow windows spanning the turret.

"I can see that," she said.  She pointed.  "That's west, right?  Yeah...I can just feel how that light must have been for her."

I kicked my toe against the cobblestones.  "I love this neighborhood."

"Yeah, it's great," she said as her eyes narrowed and she tried to put her hands on her hips, but gave up when they slid down her sides.  "What's this about you getting thrown out of some bar?"

"Uh...my dad, right?  God, that old man talks a lot."

Later, we lounged in our room, napped a little, and when she asked me what we were doing that night, I was surprised by her energy.  I told her we could stay in if she wanted, but she was ready for more, so we got in the shower and I held up her new dress when she slipped out of her towel.  On the way out the door, I grabbed her sweater and the camera.

"What do you feel like for dinner?  Is Italian okay?"

"Italian sounds great!  Oh my God...are we...?"

"...going to where they had dinner for the first time?  Santasiero's?  Why not?  I'm on a roll here, Pam.  Why would I mess it up?"

"In case you've forgotten, Jim, we're married.  I'm already in love with you...you already got hit by the thunderbolt."

"Who says lightning can't strike twice?"

Friday night - Pam

What can I say?  The whole day had been so wonderful, like it had been engineered just for us, and the evening went the same way.  I was surprised at my own energy, even after walking so much.  When I walked into the restaurant, I could hear Steve's voice in my ear.  I looked for the menu on the wall and it was still there and the old men were gathered at the bar, just like he'd said.  It was like we'd stepped back in time and it was comforting to be there, where so little had changed in over 30 years.  Dinner was wonderful - the food was amazingly good and I took a few sips of wine from Jim's jelly jar. 

There was still plenty of daylight when we stepped outside at 8:00 and he asked if I was up for a little drive.  When I said, ‘sure, where to?' we headed north, for Niagara Falls.

"The Canadian side is really better," he tells me.  "But, it's getting late and we'll do that side another time."

"It's still the honeymoon capital of the world," I tell him, reading the signs.

"Hawaii, the Caribbean...so overrated," he says.  "This...is pure romance, Pam."

We stand at an overlook and share the viewer and hold hands and do some people-watching, as dusk settles down around us.  I'm glad he packed a sweater for me because there's a fine mist in the air from the falls, just enough to give me goosebumps.  He checks his watch, then guides me to the farthest point on the lookout, shouldering his way through the crowd.  I'm just about to ask him if he's going to push me in, when he puts his arms around me and says, "Watch."

The crowd gets quiet and everyone is turned toward the Falls when they explode with light.  Pink and white, emerald and gold...and applause ripples through the crowd.  I reach up behind me and clasp my hands around the back of his neck.

"You take me to the best places."

He bends down to kiss me.  So much love here, I think, as he turns me while his lips stay on mine.  So lucky, I think, as his arms go around me.  I feel a tear spill over my lashes and he asks if I want to stay for the fireworks, and I pull back to look at him.

"This is all the fireworks I need."

He wipes my cheek and says, "I love you.  I love you more than anything."

"More than chicken wings?" I ask

"More than chicken wings."

"More than...grappa?"

"Mmm...yeah.  More than that."

Allentown - Jim

What a great year it was at Allentown!  The weather was perfect and Pam got to see Mulligan's Brick Bar, or "the scene of the crime" as she called it.  She had a Sahlen's hot dog and a lemonade, which is tradition, and she also sampled something from, I think, every food vendor there.  If she were telling this story, she'd talk about all the art and sculpture and how she was amazed at how different artists expressed themselves.  We bought a really cool mobile for over the baby's crib, and we got to meet Andy Russell, the artist who almost stole my mother away from my dad.  I couldn't believe he was there!  Of course, Pam had to give me a bunch of crap about how he could have been my father, but, I'll let her tell the story.  I only really remember what happened Sunday morning.

Allentown - Pam

It was amazing.  No, that sounds like Kelly.  It was beyond amazing.  I never could have imagined so many different kinds of art!  Okay, some of it was weird, but it was all so...creative.  And I met Andy Russell!  Did Jim say that already?  I did, I met him, and he was so gracious.  I told him I loved his stuff and that my mother-in-law had one of his paintings...Hidden Village.  He said that's always been one of his favorites and he's done variations on that theme since then.  He asked if I painted and I told him I hadn't in a while, but yes, I dabbled some.  Of course, Jim had to tell him that I was some kind of artistic savant, so he asked why I'd stopped.  I told him that I didn't know...I'd somehow lost the touch, the inspiration, but I was hoping it would come back. 

"It will.  Don't you have dreams?" he asked me.

"Sure, I've had some crazy ones since I've been pregnant," I told him.

"As long as you're still dreaming, you'll paint again," he said.  "Besides, you're creating a new life there," he said, as he nodded his head at my belly.  "That's divine inspiration, you know.  It's hope.  You're carrying hopes and dreams around with you all the time."

Jim said he was hitting on me, that history was repeating itself, but he was just teasing me.  The artist's words echoed in my head over and over all that day. 

Sunday morning, I wake up slowly from a deep sleep.  I'd been pretty worn out by the end of the day and we'd had a quiet night in the room, watching movies.  There's a bed tray with flowers and breakfast next to me on the side table and Jim is at the window, looking out.  The image, the light, him...it's all so...beautiful.  I take a moment and just look at him through my eyelashes.  He's wearing only a towel, wrapped low on his hips.  One long arm, fully extended, rests on the window frame as he leans slightly forward.  His hair's a tousled, wet mess, one leg is crossed over the other at the ankle.  The sheer, white curtain is ruffling softly over his left shoulder.  His right hand is wrapped around a coffee mug and as he bends a little to blow on his coffee, the light from the window highlights the curves and planes of his back, his spine, and my eye follows that line, starting at his neck where my lips have teased his soft skin, falling down between the slopes of his shoulders, then defying gravity to curve in at his waist, and finally pushing out at his hips and disappearing into the white terry cloth.  Like the Falls vanishing into spray, delicate, like the curtain flowing over his shoulder, strong, like the iron scrolls on the railing of our terrace, pliable, like the bristles of a brush loaded with paint.

I move to grab the linen napkin off the breakfast tray and he starts to turn and say "good morning" but I tell him not to move!  Don't move!  Stay like you are!  And I sit up and flatten the linen across my lap.  I stare at him again and he's asking "what?" and I don't answer.  I can't believe the beauty of that line, the power and elegance of that curve.  Without a pencil, I use my fingernail to trace that line into the napkin.  No color, just shape, just the movement of that line embedded into the threads of the napkin.  I trace it over and over and over again, and it feels like music.  It feels like the words to a song I can't remember learning coming back to me and when a tear falls on the napkin and changes the color to a darker shade of white, I see a million different shades in the fibers there, and when I look up again, he's staring at me...unsure, unbelieving, but so, so hopeful. 

"Pam...what is it?"

"It's...Jim..."

"What?  Pam are you...?"

"It's...it's everything...it's just like your mother said...Jim...your back...no, it's not your back, it's me...I'm back.  It's back.  Oh my gosh, I need..."

"Just tell me!"

"I need some paper!  And a pencil!"

"Can I...?"

"YES, you can move now!"

We scramble around the room and find The Mansion on Delaware stationery, but no pencils and he starts out the door in his towel and I have to yell at him to put some pants on.  He pulls up a pair of jeans, hopping around the room and he's still zipping as he heads out the door.

The pad of stationery came along for the ride home and the first drawing of Jim's back in profile at the window is quickly joined by my memory of the shapes and figures from the barroom crowd at The Anchor Bar.  I flick through the pictures on the camera and find the one of the lake alongside the art gallery, just to refresh the image in my mind and start on that one as we cross the Pennsylvania state line.  I don't think we've said ten words to each other the entire way home.  We stopped once for a bathroom break and something to drink and I wanted to stay and sketch the rest area.  He said, ‘The last thing I want to do is discourage you, Pam, but it's a public toilet for God's sake, and we need to get back on the road.  Can't you draw something else?" and I laughed, mostly at myself, because it really was absurd to want to draw a rest stop bathroom.   But my hand felt like it was tingling and I wanted to draw everything.  The handle on the car door seemed endlessly fascinating and I drew the curve of Jim's lips in profile, his jawline, his neck.  I didn't really finish these; I just drew the light and shadows that pleased me. 

Finally, a cramp stilled my hand and I looked up at him.

"Where are we?"

"About 45 minutes from home.  It's going to start raining any minute."

"Dark clouds rolling in over there."

"Yep."

It was going to take longer than 45 minutes to process everything that had happened this weekend, but one thing I knew for sure.  The drought was over.  I felt like you do on the first spring day that's warm enough to go without a coat, shrugging off the weight of wool. 

"You did this," I told him.

"No...I didn't.  You did."

"Jim, you made this weekend happen."

"Yeah, it was a great weekend, wasn't it?"

"You're kidding...right?"

"Look...Pam.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping that something like this would happen, but...I didn't know it would.  I just knew it would be fun.  At the very least, I knew we'd have fun together."

"Thank you.  I mean it...with all my heart."

Just then, a huge vein of lightning lit the sky and a crack of thunder made us both jump.  The rain poured out of the sky, pounding on the car so loudly, I had to say it twice, almost yelling so he could hear me.

"Happy Father's Day!"

~~

I wake up in the rocking chair with a start, disoriented, and feeling a huge cramp down low and then a rush of something all down my legs and I'm calling for him.  I hear him taking the stairs at a run, yelling, "are you okay?" and then he's there, kneeling in front of me, asking "what is it?"

"You promised you'd help me look for the plug."

"Is it...?"

"Yeah, I think so.  I think my water just broke."

"Oh my God, Pam!"

"Jim, are you ready for this?"

"I'm so ready.  You?"

"Ready."

"Okay, here we go!"

Chapter title is a lyric from "Secret o' Life" by James Taylor.  Only owned by JT. 

Please stay tuned for a video companion to Allentown at the end of this chapter!

Pam

It seemed like I’d just finished, framed, and hung all the drawings, the sketches I’d struggled and cried over.  Just a month after Natalie was born, the final set of hands – hers – were hung.  Her chubby little baby hands found their home among all the loving hands that held her, stroked her golden brown curls, played “this little piggy” with her tiny toes.  But not long after that, I was taking them down, wrapping them in tissue paper and packing them in boxes for the move.

Michael said Dan Gore was never the brightest tool in the shed, and coming from Michael, that means…something.  The Buffalo branch had been failing and some of the board members wanted to just shut it down, but David Wallace had another idea:  take one failing branch office, add one hotshot salesman and let it rise.  Jim got the call and while New York City had been all wrong (for lots of reasons), Buffalo seemed just right.   Now, three years later, it seems perfect.  I remembered Jim telling me about taking detours and of course, he was right.  Sometimes it does turn out to be the best thing.  And now I’m about to take a turn I wasn’t expecting, but I know for certain I’m going the right way.

Jim

“Nate, please just sit still for one more minute.”

“Hurry up, Daddy!  Mommy doesn’t take this long.”

“Yeah, well, Mommy’s an expert at fixing hair.  Look at my hair, huh?  Clearly, I’m not an expert.”

She giggles her mother’s laugh and she winds me one notch tighter around her finger.  She keeps this up and I’ll be buying her a BMW when she’s 10, if that’s what she wants.   Who knew two little pigtails could take so long?  But she’s squirming all over and you’d think I’d be better at this by now, but just then, my mother comes in to save me.

“Jim, let me.  Natalie, let Grandma fix your hair.”

She takes the comb from me and the doorbell rings and I hear my father greeting my in-laws at the front door. 

Pam

We found a house on Lafayette about halfway between Buffalo State and the Albright-Knox and Allentown.  I found myself living right in the middle of a thriving art community and I took advantage of as much as I could with a fairly new baby.  Arty folk are pretty laid back, though, and by the time Natalie had her first birthday, she’d already been to as many art shows as I had at 30.  She was a great little ice breaker, too, and I made fast friends with the women who never failed to approach me to comment on her hair or her big smile that she got from her daddy.  

Jim’s promotion allowed me to extend my maternity leave to semi-permanent leave.  Just another puzzle piece that had fallen into place as if by divine intervention.  After a year though, my thoughts were returning to school and classes and finishing my degree.  I’d taken Natalie on walks down Elmwood in her stroller many times and sometimes we’d head for the Albright Knox, but often, we seemed to find our way to the Buff State campus, me lifting her stroller up the stairs of Upton Hall to wander through the gallery there.  On one of those trips, I stopped in the student services building and picked up an application. 

Jim

Nate is finally ready and the grandparents are, too, so we get the stroller ready to head out down Elmwood.  I apologize again for the walk, but everyone’s happy to be taking in the beautiful May sunshine.  Parking was going to be a nightmare, so I’d driven the car down the night before, left it, and walked back home.  We’re going to have a little party at Santasiero’s when we’re done, so we can all pile into the van.  The grandmothers are catching up with each other and my father’s busy pointing out all the sights to Pam’s dad.  I’m pushing the stroller and Nate is hollering like crazy because she insists she’s too big to be in a “baby stroller.”  I tell her, ‘of course you are’ and stop and haul her out and onto my shoulders.  My father tells me I’m doomed as I push the empty stroller down the street.

Kellie’s meeting us.  Michael, too, and I can’t wait to hear how that car ride went. 

Pam

It hadn’t been easy.  Jim had challenges at work, turning the office around.  He traveled for work occasionally.  Nate would get a cold or the flu and I’d be buried in paper and covered in paint and she would be crying.  One time, we both just sat on the bathroom floor and cried together.  But I wasn’t going to let anything derail me this time.  My mom came up and stayed for a few days around midterms and finals and that was a huge help.  Mel seemed to call at just the right times to encourage me and Kellie always managed a call when Dwight or Michael did something spectacularly ridiculous, just to share it and make me laugh.  I missed her.

When I’d first started college after high school, I was an art education major, just like Mel.  I still had credits that would count toward a degree and now, I was going to be able to take more than just a few classes at a time.  I could finish in just under three years.  Done.  A teacher.  An art teacher.   It was a really long, winding detour I’d taken, but I found myself once again on the path I’d started on in the very beginning. 

Jim

They call it “walking” when you attend your graduation.  Pam tells me she can’t believe some students don’t want to walk.  They don’t want to wear the cap and gown, take the walk up to the stage when their names are called, shake the college president’s hand, and walk away, moving the tassel from one side of the cap to the other.   We’re sitting on the porch and she’s leaning back against me on the wicker loveseat.

“It’s all I’ve been thinking about,” she says.  “I can’t wait.”

“I’m really proud of you.”

“I’m glad our parents are going to be here.”

“Everyone’s coming.  Everyone’s excited and proud of you.”

“It’s going to be a big day.  A good day.”

“Supposed to be warm on Saturday.  Warm enough to go naked underneath that gown.”

“No thanks, but we can play professor and naughty student later, after our parents leave.”

“You’re keeping the cap, too, right?”

“The cap’s the best part!”

“Awesome.”

“Hey, you know what I’m really excited about?”

“What?”

“I’m excited Natalie’s going to be there.  I mean, she probably won’t remember any of what happens, but I’m glad she’s going to be there.”

“Well, she’s really the one who saved you from a life of misery and hardship as a graphic designer.”

“There is that, but I want her to know that it’s never too late, you know?  That if you want something and you work hard, you can get it.”

I kiss the top of her head and say ‘like you did’ and she tells me ‘yes.’

“And I want her to be proud of me.”

Pam

Lining up with the other art students and listening to them chatter away, I think does this mean as much to them as it does to me?  I don’t see how it possibly can.  They haven’t spent years being a receptionist, or tried to finish a project at 3:00 in the morning with a baby on their shoulders.  But after today, I can say I’m an art teacher.  I’m a wife and a mother and a teacher.  When I’m not teaching art, I am an artist.  I do illustrations. 

I sit in my seat with the other students and scan the crowd looking for my cheering section.  I finally hear a high-pitched scream of “Mommy!” and my eyes find Jim with Natalie on his shoulders and I wave.  The whole group waves back and I take a longer look at each one of them, but my eyes rest longest on Jim.  Holding Natalie’s legs close to his chest with one hand and waving with the other.  She’s got one arm wrapped under his chin and her head’s resting on the top of his while she waves down at me. 

My little family...my inspiration.

I’ll be teaching at St. Rose of Lima grade school in the fall.  Art for seventh and eighth graders.  I count backwards on my fingers from May and think…when I start making my lesson plans in July, we're going to start making some other plans, too.  Jim’s never been shy about telling me how much he wants another baby.  Natalie was barely out of the womb when he decided that this Daddy thing was pretty cool.  But, no way am I going to be 9 months pregnant in August again and I want to be home all summer with the new baby.   A new baby!  No surprises about a mucous plug or labor.  No one’s going to tell me horror stories this time and I’ve already forgotten my own, which wasn’t that bad anyway.  Just the joy of another baby, a brother or a sister for Natalie.

Before any of that starts, I’ll be busy putting the final touches on my last few drawings and getting them mounted and ready.  Two students from the art ed department are selected to show their work in the Buffalo State College booth at Allentown every year.  I’m one of them.  Mel said it was the wheel turning again. 

I look back up at Jim when they’re on the H’s and he waves again and I mouth “I love you” at him.  He smiles that big grin and does the same.    When they call my name, all I can think about is what’s around the next corner.  I’m thinking about our future, our family, my students, our life ahead.  It's like a mosaic we're making together, Jim and I.  I'm thinking how, if you stand too close sometimes, you focus on all the little pieces...some pieces are fine like polished glass, and some are ragged and worn, some weathered and tear-stained.  But if you step back, you can see them all coming together to form images and scenes that tell the story of us.  It's a story we're still writing and I can't wait for the next chapter.  

Jim

Here’s what I’m thinking when I hear them call “Pamela Halpert.”  I’m thinking of origami doves and yogurt lid medals.  I’m thinking of secret glances and silly pranks and doing anything I could just to steal a few moments with her.  I’m thinking of how I challenged her once, telling her she had to take a chance on something, sometime.  I remember losing all hope that she ever would, but then she took a chance on me.  I’m thinking of her face as we said our vows, our tears when Natalie came into the world, and those first few months, both of us sleepless in Scranton, laughing at things that shouldn’t have been funny.  I’m thinking of those months before, when she felt abandoned and lost and how helpless I felt, wanting to make it all right for her.  I’m thinking of my father telling me to “just love her” and me thinking that was like telling me to breathe.   As I reach up to bring my daughter down from my shoulders and settle her next to my heart, I’m thinking about our first trip here.  I kiss her sweet face, so much like Pam's, until she giggles into my neck.  I remember that Sunday morning, watching her face, waiting to breathe, until she said, "I'm back."  And now here we are, taking the walk, starting down a new bend in the road, getting ready for Allentown.

~~

The song in this video might be a little cliche, but The Goo Goo Dolls are from Buffalo, so it seemed appropriate.  Many thanks to Susanita's tireless screencapping expertise - so many of the pictures appear thanks to her.  I've never done a video before, but I felt inspired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXbElIeudPg