I am very special 

“Do you like it Grandma?” Pam’s granddaughter Jenny Halpert was looking at her with anxious eyes. Tiny and red-haired, Jenny looked nothing like her father Jamie; she was a perfect miniature of her mother, Jamie’s ex-wife.

Jenny’s cousin Bret also looked exactly like his mother; in fact, he looked so much like Lucy that Pam was sometimes a little freaked out by it. Bret, a serious-minded eight-year-old, was standing slightly behind his six-year-old cousin, watching Pam opening her birthday gift.

The gift in question was a sweatshirt. In fact, it was a kelly green sweatshirt with an iron-on appliqué, of the type commonly found in malls in less affluent areas. This particular appliqué was a picture of a large cartoon cat, so unnaturally dead-eyed that it would have sent Angela Martin herself running in the other direction. Above the cat were the words “#1 Grandma!” in balloon-font letters.

“Of course I…I love it.” Pam felt justified in the lie as Jenny beamed at her in relief. With a sudden intuition, however, she followed up with a question. “Did- did you and Bret pick this out all by yourselves?”

Both kids nodded happily. “We each picked one out, but Granddad said this one was absolutely the one you would like most,” Bret answered.

“Did he? Well, that Granddad of yours sure is a big help.” Pam fought valiantly not to roll her eyes at her husband, who was just then chuckling silently across the room.

“Will you change into it, Gramma?” Jenny asked softly. Pam agreed, and wore her new shirt for the rest of the small family birthday party.

Dusk was falling as Pam and Jim kissed their kids and grandkids good-bye and waved as they drove out of sight. Hand in hand, the two headed back inside and started cleaning up the remnants of party snacks scattered throughout the house. Pam was wrapping the last of the birthday cake for the next day’s dessert when she noticed that Jim had walked into the kitchen silently and was just standing there, watching her.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” Jim was grinning at being caught, though, so Pam knew that it was more than “nothing.”

“What?”

He broke into a laugh. “That is the most…hideous shirt I’ve ever seen.”

Pam laughed, too. “Well, yes, thank you. And thanks to you, I’m now stuck wearing it at every family gathering for the next year.”

Jim eased himself into a kitchen chair. “Trust me, the other one was just as bad. Hot pink, in fact.”

“Nice!” Pam finished putting the cake away, and sat down across from Jim at the small table. The sun was setting outside the window, and they watched it quietly for a moment.

Jim reached across the table and took Pam’s hand. In the waning light, any age spots or wrinkles were invisible, but she knew he wouldn’t care about them anyway.  His hand was warm and still strong, and she smiled at him, feeling truly blessed for another year of life with this remarkable man.

Jim smiled softly back at her. She loved his smile so much, always. Leaning forward slightly, he broke the comfortable silence. “You haven’t opened my present yet.”

Pam smiled eagerly. “A present for me? I guess that means that I am very special.” They had previously agreed that, instead of buying individual gifts for each other or their kids that year, they would instead surprise the whole family at Christmas with tickets for an all-expenses-paid trip the following summer. Pam knew, therefore, that whatever she was about to receive was probably very inexpensive but also probably very creative.

Jim fetched a plastic bag from the other room. “I didn’t have time to wrap it,” he said, smiling.

Pam’s own smile became more of a smirk as she noticed the name on the bag. “The T-Shirt Hut?”

“Well, while I was there with the kids, something caught my eye. I knew you had to have it.”

Pam opened the bag. Inside was a powder-blue long-sleeved T-shirt, folded neatly. Pam impatiently shook it to open it up, dying with curiosity to see what sort of tacky iron-on he’d chosen.  As she finally viewed the front of the shirt, Pam’s eyes and mouth popped open in mingled amusement and horror, and Jim broke into a delighted laugh.

“Well…,” she noted dryly, “I had no idea I’d been married to Kevin Malone all these years.”

“C’mon. I couldn’t resist!” Jim was giggling uncontrollably now, much more at the look on Pam’s face than on the questionable humor of the shirt he’d chosen.

“I at least hope the kids didn’t see this!” Pam was laughing, now, too, but her (grand)maternal instinct was still fully intact.

“Pam! I’m shocked that you would even question that!” Jim stopped laughing long enough to give a look of feigned offense. Reaching again to take Pam’s hand, Jim smiled. “Anyway, crude as it is- it’s still true,” he said. Pam blushed and pulled her hand away, shaking her head and laughing. He continued, “Will you change into it, Gramma?” in a bad imitation of his granddaughter.

“I guess. But just this once!” Pam laughingly led Jim up to their bedroom, brandishing the t-shirt in front of her like a flag. Emblazoned across the chest in navy and silver were the letters GILF.