Yes. He said yes. And then? A silence filled with everything she doesn’t know, doesn’t understand.

In Connecticut, she knew how, she knew what, she knew why; she knew where she could get a goddamn manicure on a Sunday. Then he said “I think you should” and she heard yes, and she thought “maybe.” Maybe she finally knew who. So she crossed her fingers, packed up her car, and checked into the Holiday Inn. But their first night in town, Jim had ordered cottage cheese with apple butter. When she teased him about it (What the hell? Who eats that?), he just got quiet. Thoughtful. Then, after a moment: “I like it. I’ve missed it.” She saw then that maybe she knew nothing, at least nothing that mattered here in Scranton. “He’s home,” she thought. “This is his home. He’s home, and where am I? Maybe,” she thought again, “maybe I don’t really know him so well.” By Monday, her first day in the office, she knew something else – she had a lot to learn about this town.

And she does. She learns something new every day. But the more she learns, the less she understands, starting with why and ending with yes.

Yes. She said yes. Not only yes, but yes, please.

He tried, he really did. He asked Karen first, which should count for something. But he’s been getting by for far too long on “it counts for something.” And it’s not fair – he knows it’s not fair – that all he hears is no from a girl who’s never said anything but yes. Yes I have a thing for you, yes I’ll taking the job in Scranton, yes you can come up, yes oh yes yes yes Jim yes, yes I believe you, yes I know you’re glad I’m here. And what does he give her? Maybe. Maybe you should take that job, maybe we should pick another target, maybe you shouldn’t move there, maybe I should go before it gets too late, maybe I was overreacting but maybe we really are moving too fast.

He was giving her something, he was giving her maybe, but that’s not enough. Then Pam says yes (yes please), and suddenly even maybe something is just beyond him.

So she asks and anything else he could say would make him an asshole and a liar, and anyway, who is he kidding? So he said yes because she said yes, and well, yes, yes he does.

Yes. She said yes. Yes, please. And she’ll say yes again, every time. Not that there was any no left in her. As if she ever had “no” in her for Jim.

Everything else, but never no. Every refusal, every denial was just another unspoken yes. She never understood then how he heard anything else. Why her answers mattered when there was never any need for questions between them. And when there was, finally, still she never said no (never, ever said it). There was I can’t and I’m sorry and you have no idea and I can’t, and a final unspoken yes that wasn’t. And then, too soon, he was gone and too late, she found “no.” No Roy, no Mom, no Michael, no no no no no.

And then he came back. She felt him – she felt yes – approaching like an oncoming train. First the faint tremor under her feet, a pinprick of light in the distance. As the murmur swelled to a roar, yes became a weighted, tangible force that sliced through the inky black – a searchlight that threw all of her questions, answers, dreams, and fear into high relief. Her yes illuminated dark corners that were dusty and forgotten for so long. But away from her, he had also found no and the train was gone and she was left cold in the dark with questions and no.

But now, he’s asking, and she’s asking. And there’s a time for no, but months and years of no are done and there’s nothing left in him and nothing left in her but yes.