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You lay on the floor of your old bedroom on an old Transformers sleeping bag you found in the closet. She tangles her feet with yours as you tell her your plans for the house. The paneling will have to go, and Pam suggests maybe just putting a painting over the creepy clown painting as the creepy clown painting doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Your parents did give you a good price for it, and you’re going to use the money you saved to fix all of the things wrong with the house. Fix it for her.
You had this sinking feeling as you were walking through the house with her that she was going to hate it. It occurred to you more than once through the tour that she had every right to hand you back the ring and take back off for New York City. But she didn’t, she just smiled at you and incredulously repeated that you had bought her a house. You bought her a house, like it was some amazing thing.
It wasn’t. You would do anything for her, and the house is just the start.
It was the garage that did if for you. And it had been your mother who had actually given you the idea.
“I had always wanted to turn this into my space,” she had said wistful looking at the walls and you could see she was seeing something other than the glorified storage space. She was seeing a room that was all her own in a house that wasn’t. You and your father and your brothers had taken up every inch of that house and made it your own.
“Your father always said that we could put some carpet, get some insulation and turn it into a room out here, but then,” she trails off, but you know how it was going to end. But then they had kids, and the kids had toys and bikes and a car which your dad didn’t want sitting outside in the terrible Scranton winters and it became just a garage. You see her finger the boxes where your old report cards and your brothers’ old school papers were and you can see her thinking, and you wonder what’s going through her head. What she regrets, what she can never regret, what she wanted her life to be and what it actually was.
But then she smiles at you and leads you back to the house, and you think that you could give Pam that space. Do what your father never did and turn it into an art studio for her. The lighting is pretty decent, and with some modifications it could be a really great place for her. Plus it’s away from the house, so she could retreat there if she just needed to get away.
It’s the garage that clouds your judgment at first, makes you agree to buy it from your parents without talking to Pam. You are so sure that she is going to love the garage that you don’t think about the rest of the house. It’s seeing it through the camera’s eyes that you suddenly regret your impulsiveness.
But she loves it and you love her and you close your eyes on the scratchy old sleeping bag and you see a house that is yours and not your parents’. You see kids and Christmas mornings and Easter Egg hunts and pictures that Pam has created all over the walls.
Her breathing has evened and she’s quiet and you know she’s fallen asleep, and you trace her face with the tip of your finger, like you did when you first started dating her and like you have been every night since she returned from New York City.
Holding her, you close your eyes and you let yourself drift off to sleep, and you wake up as the sun is pouring in through the cracks in the blinds and you hear some pounding. Pam isn’t next to you anymore, and you climb to your feet and wish you hadn’t slept on the floor because you aren’t twenty two anymore, and find her in the hallway with a hammer and some pliers and what looks like a bottle opener and you realize it is. And there’s some spatulas on the floor next to her as well as some butter knives and other various kitchen utensils and she grins at you.
“I was trying everything I could think of to get this off,” she gestures to the clown painting and you see that she’s managed to get one side off and the wall behind it is a different color, one that you remember the house being years ago and you laugh. “I figured your parents wouldn’t mind if I ruined these because it appeared they took everything they wanted to keep.” You nod, and pick up an old pizza cutter.
“What seems to have worked?” You ask and she grins again.
“The butter knife, if you can believe it,” she answers. You can’t help but pull her into your arms and kiss the hell out of her because she’s pretty much the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen and you can do that and you’ve missed her so much.
And the clown painting finally falls off completely, bouncing to the ground with the glass shattering and the two of you laugh.
“Welcome home,” you whisper into her hair.
Story Notes:
I've had some serious writer's block, and this was a little story to help me get over it. Because Jim buying Pam a house is love.
Author's Chapter Notes:
The title is from the song by Joseph Arthur.
bashert is the author of 37 other stories.
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