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!"