It was supposed to be better here. In their tiny sunlit apartment close to their new office they were supposed to finally, truly connect. New York was for starting over. Here away from all those old memories (boxes full of paper doves and yogurt medals put away in long term storage) they were going to start over and he was going to (finally, finally) give her his whole heart. And they did seem better at first, he wore her platinum ring (he wanted gold but she thought that was far too old fashioned) and he carried her over their threshold when they had first moved in. The laughter, which had somehow never managed to reach his eyes, finally started creeping in. He had started to kiss her when they made love and for the first time it was her name that had formed on his lips as he came (just the thought of the way he had said it still made her knees weak).
But then it had all fallen apart.
It had started (as all these things start) innocently enough. He had made a big sale at work and had verbally committed himself to taking the next day easy. He had invited her out to lunch and she had turned him down (what if she hadn’t? Would everything still have changed, was it a ticking time bomb?) she had had a hair appointment she couldn’t cancel. He had shrugged his shoulders and smiled that goofy smile; he had said that he would maybe check out that travel bookstore around the corner from the office. But he never made it back for dinner, she got a text message something came up, will be home late. And it wasn’t until late at night when she was in bed- desperately trying to swallow the sense of dread that had crept up her throat- that he finally came home. He undressed in the darkness and when he finally lay down next to her she had pretended to be asleep. And when she heard him whisper “Karen?” she had resisted turning over, mostly out of fear of what he might have to say.
The next day she had woken up earlier than him, desperate to avoid him, she had thought that maybe if she put it off that feeling of anxiety would go away, maybe it would all be ok. When she got home that night he wasn’t there, she went through their apartment (some boxes still unopened shoved in a corner, art work still leaning against walls waiting for the weekend to be hung) and touched the things that spoke of them. She stroked the edge of their framed wedding portrait, in the picture he looked straight ahead at the camera and she smiled up at him. She had somehow convinced herself that he was happy but now as she looked at that portrait she saw the thing she had ignored in his eyes all this time, regret.
She went to bed early again, shuffling around their bedroom picking up their clothes from yesterday. As she mechanically emptied pockets she pulled out a napkin with a pencil drawing on it. It was from Trevisios, an Italian restaurant a few blocks from their apartment and sketched on it was a perfect likeness of his desk from Scranton, detailed down to the tiny frames that framed his monitor. Karen didn’t need to look to closely to try to place the artist; she had packed an entire box full of impromptu sketches of hers to be unable to recognize Pam’s hand. And as the napkin fell from her hands, Karen knew that the one person you should never ever lie to is yourself.
No matter how many rings she could give Jim, or how far they could move, Jim couldn’t give her his heart if he had left it in Scranton.
Suddenly, sleep didn’t seem like the answer, she showered and unlike her usual ritual after bathing she didn’t put her ring back on.
When he came home that night, his face somber, he had a light in his eyes that she had never seen. When he said they needed to talk it, she shook her head and began to cry.
He talked, she listened. It hadn’t been his intention to ever Pam again, but there she had been in the Europe aisle thumbing through a guidebook on Paris. And it seemed that fate had pushed them together and awkward small talk had led to coffee which had led to dinner which had led to her to show him her studio which had led him to kiss her (he had finally picked tonight, their last night to finally, finally be honest). And amidst the guilt and sorrow they had finally found their way back to one another.
It had never been her. It could never be her. Not while Pam walked this Earth. Now as she watched him try not to cry, she felt her own tears dry up. It was like watching a movie that you felt was so real that you were almost a part of it, except that you were just a spectator all along and now it had come to an end and the lights were just about to come on.
For a moment she felt anger and vindictiveness creep into her bones, he had cheated on her, he had lied, he had never loved her.
But at the same time he’d tried to tell her too, in the thousands of ways you tell someone that you don’t love them, at least not like that. It was she who had been deliberately obtuse, and now that her eyes were finally open she couldn’t blame him for merely finding his way back to the one person he’d loved all along.
Now it’s a week later and the boxes that were never unpacked are joined by more of their brothers, his stuff is going to storage and he’s going to Paris. Pam’s got an art class there and he’s tired of waiting for his real life to begin, Karen is not sure she can blame him.
When she finally sees Pam for the first time in months, when she in a moment of weakness goes to Pam’s apartment to see the man who is still technically her husband to somehow beg him to give it another try, she’s shocked by the smiling woman who opens the door. Her eyes are alive, her cheeks rosy, she’s radiating joy and Karen feels as if she’s a stranger to this person who she worked with for almost a year. And Karen finally realizes that she never knew her at all, or him really, she only knew the walls they had put up around themselves so that people wouldn’t see the hurt. And when she sees Jim in the back of Pam’s tiny studio she realizes that she never knew the Jim that stands before her, he had disappeared before she had ever met him. This was Pam’s Jim, her’s had just been an illusion who had disintegrated along with their marriage.
Karen never did ask that stranger to come home, she merely gave him instructions on what to do with his things and with that the man who was never really hers to begin with slipped from her fingers for the last time.
Now Karen’s ready for her real life to begin too. She’s ready to meet someone whose eyes light up for her, someone whose life has been missing her to be complete. She’s ready to find herself. And if she knows one thing, it’s this- she’ll never fall in love with her eyes closed again.
