It takes a full week before her new apartment even starts to look like home, and Pam wonders how long it will take before it feels like home. Her bookshelves are there (the ones she and her mother bought unfinished and stained one afternoon, the dark liquid leaving spots in her bedroom carpet that will never be removed), so she must be home. In college, she felt crafty one day and glued ribbon trim onto each shelf. In the house she shared with Roy, the shelves held books and the photo albums she dutifully compiled and labeled: Senior Year, Summer ’99, Lake House, Christmas ’01, Engagement Party, Anderson Shower, Beesly Shower, Super Bowl 2004 (Go Eagles!). Here, she unpacked her books first, as she has every time she’s moved, so that helps, to have them standing there, to see her old friends Ramona Quimby, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Alanna of Trebond lined up neatly beside the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (don’t panic, she tells herself), the fat, red spine of Norton’s History of Art, a graduation gift from her great-aunt, and her college textbooks, some with the yellow USED sticker still on the spines. She had very nearly put her tattered copies of Wifey and My Darling Melissa up there with the rest, but, feeling foolish, she instead shoved them deep in the drawer of her nightstand along with her vibrator, though there was no one to find them.
The bedroom feels familiar and strange all at once, like the time she drove into the suburban development just like hers, with all the same house models, but placed differently so that she felt like a victim of M.C. Escher. She got to keep the down quilt and the duvet cover, blue and green with narrow green stripes, that she had picked out when they moved in together. But she took it off to wash it -- get out the musty smell of sex, Roy’s Gilette deodorant, and her cucumber lotion -- and she hasn’t bothered to put it back on. So the comforter sits naked, the stark white expanse a daily reproach to her procrastination.
She’s been alone before, like the ten days Roy went on vacation with his family and she stayed home, waiting for her sister to go into labor, or when he crashed with friends after another night of watching the Flyers turned into one too many. Still, this is different because he’s not coming home, and there’s no one else to think about, no one else's needs to consider. Each time she does something by herself, for herself, she is a little surprised, a little scandalized, at how good it feels. Hanging thick chenille curtains at the bedroom windows, stenciling butterflies and dragonflies onto the walls, she almost sticks out her tongue in triumph. These are things that Roy never actually rejected, because she never asked. She figured that winged insects would be too girly for him, and even if he gave in, he would hate them. And who wants to deal with that? But now it’s all hers, and she’ll do what she damn well pleases. She sets her DVR to record all episodes, at any time, of Friends, jaw clenched defensively because she knows that Roy (and maybe, well, others) would laugh at her (mild) silly obsession. But by the time she ends up crying a little (a lot) when Ross comes back from China with Julie, she understands that no one is around to tease her about being such a girl.
Days feel like years, and weeks pass like hours. It seems like a lifetime, but it's only been two weeks when her adrenaline starts to dissipate, the novelty fades. The weight of days wears her down. She goes to work, sits at her desk, stares blankly at her monitor until a phone rings and anchors her once more. She carries on long, accusatory conversations in her head, alternately arguing with Roy, lashing out at Jim, or berating herself. And with Jim’s empty chair (and later, Jim’s chair filled with Ryan) staring her in the face, there is no escaping her new reality, the consequences of both her cowardice and her bravery. At the office, she is alone even among all those people. Coming home (and it’s finally home), it hits her all over again. She is alone, really alone.
Like an amputee, phantom pain dogs every step forward. Boxes unpacked, pictures hung, house clean, work done, there is nothing to distract her. She knows she should start running, take a kickboxing class, anything to burn off the nervous exhaustion that keeps her up until 1:00, 2:00 in the morning. Or, she could draw, or paint, because that is supposed to be her creative outlet, right? She pulls out a sketch pad and her new set of pencils, setting them on the coffee table, and never picks them up through long nights lost to mindless television.
Knowing she did the right thing is small comfort when she wakes up in the middle of the night in a bed too cold and too wide. It is at these times, waking from a fitful sleep, that she gives in and cries. Pam hardly knows what she’s mourning, but she can’t avoid it any more; she is alone, and 3:42 a.m. is the time for truth.
Soon enough, the full weight of what she’s done settles in and she can’t stop crying, no matter what the hour. She cries because Jim is gone and it turns out that she just wasn’t good enough to wait a few weeks for, that he didn’t love her enough to try again. He’s gone, and Joni Mitchell's words don't leave her alone (don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone?). She misses something she didn’t know she had, and she misses her best friend. If she hadn’t been so dumb, so scared, she could have had him here right now. She imagines him tickling her while she giggles and writhes, pictures him getting up to get a blanket or a glass of water, coming back to her on the couch, his head resting in her lap as she strokes his hair and they make fun of some B-list celebrity’s sad, sad attempt at the Foxtrot. If only she’d answered differently, he might be beside her in bed, running his fingers lightly up and down her spine, making her shiver . Very late at night, barely waking, she imagines that he’s kissing the back of her neck and she’s moaning as he reaches his wet fingers over her thigh and between her legs, stroking her until she aches for him and he slips inside her, his finger still tapping her clit as she reaches back and pulls him into her, rocking back and pushing, pushing against him until she clenches around him and shudders to climax. Awake now, and panting, her hair sticking to the back of her neck, she opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling until her breathing returns to normal.
Then, feeling stupid, the tears start again. This time for Roy and the ten years she’s still not sure if she wasted waiting for things to get better. When people tell her it’s for the best, and someone better will come along, and she’s stronger for it, and everything happens for a reason, Pam wants to step on their feet and make them shut up shut UP! Because now that it’s over, now that it’s really over and there’s no backup plan in sight, Pam can’t help feeling that maybe she’s given up on the only man who will ever really love her. If only she’d tried a little harder to love him, to make it work, maybe if she hadn’t had unrealistic expectations marrying a man who understood her (marriage isn't mindreading, her mother used to tell her), she would be curled up around his broad back right now, cheek pressed to his shoulder, arm around his waist, his big hand holding hers.
Later, she cries for herself and the life she thought she’d have. The security, the sameness are gone and she’s left with no plans, no vision of her future. It's nearly a month later when that thought is comforting instead of terrifying. And finally, finally the tears pass and she’s alone again. Alone, with her entire life stretching with the promise of a blank canvas on a frame. If it weren’t 4:26 by now, she might laugh at the metaphor. As it is, she simply wipes her eyes, flips her pillow so the damp side doesn’t touch her face. She closes her eyes on the silence. Alone, she falls asleep. Alone, but at last, not lonely.
