Life back to normal

The apartment was almost clean of party debris – the dishwasher had been loaded, the floor swept, the good wine glasses washed, dried and put away.

‘Late night OCD attack?’ Karen had teased, seeing Jim sitting at the counter, sorting the leftover Carr’s Water Biscuits and Stoned Wheat Thins into their respective boxes.

He smiled back at her distractedly and resumed the task at hand. It was true; it wasn’t like him to be so orderly. But at that moment, it felt good to put things back in their proper places.

‘Can you carry the recycling down for me?’ she requested as they finished up. ‘I’d really like to get all this stuff out of here before we go to bed.’

‘Yes m’am,’ he nodded.

He went to drop the beer bottle he’d just emptied into the bin by the back door. There, amongst the discarded wine and soda bottles, was Pam’s vibrant turquoise pot.

‘You’re putting this out with the recycling?’ he asked stunned, extracting it from the rubble and holding it up.

‘That?’ Karen said absently. ‘Oh, you’re right, I guess you can’t recycle clay. It made sense after a few martinis … ‘

‘But…Pam made it.’

‘The flowers were the gift, Jim,’ she replied with more than a hint of exasperation, as she pointed to where they were now displayed in a sleek glass bud vase on the coffee table, ‘not the vase…pot, whatever.’

When he continued to stare at her in disbelief, she went on.

‘Pam said herself it was just a silly thing… a cute little joke.’ She looked him directly in the eye before concluding, ‘There’s really no point in hanging on to it.’

And at that moment, he knew for sure she’d been aware of him sitting with Pam earlier. He nodded his tacit agreement to let it alone.

Life back to normal.

‘God, I’m beat,’ Karen yawned a few minutes later, affectionately squeezing his shoulder as she headed towards the bedroom. ‘I can’t believe we have to be up for work in the morning.’

‘Yeah, me neither,’ Jim agreed, as he stood and walked over to where his jacket was slung over the back of a chair. ‘Guess I’ll get going then.

‘You’re not staying over?’ she abruptly turned back towards him, clearly surprised.

‘Uh…well, I’m pretty tired too and I didn’t bring any work clothes, so…’

It was a lame excuse; it would hardly be the first morning he’d run home to change. But he just couldn’t stay. Not that night. He could see Karen deflate, but she didn’t argue and she didn’t ask questions.

‘I’ll take this down on my way out,’ he bent down to give her a quick kiss goodbye before hoisting the recycling bin.

‘Pick me up for work tomorrow?’ her voice sounded uncharacteristically thin and cautious as she watched him unlatch the back door.

‘Yeah, sure,’ he forced a reassuring smile. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’