Some Mornings

***

Some mornings he wakes up and she’s not there and he briefly, just so briefly, worries she was an apparition in the darkness from his most painful memories. But his bedsheets smell of her and her clothes are piled on his bedroom floor and her sounds are coming from the kitchen.

He shuffles, sometimes still full of disbelief, down the stairs to where she stands in front of the stove. She’s always wearing one his old basketball T-shirts or the button-down he wore to work the day before or a jersey that he wore while watching the game last weekend over a pair of boy shorts that cover more than her other panties, but display just enough of her ass cheek that he can’t himself but moving behind her closely to give a gentle squeeze.

The affectionate squeeze is always accompanied with him gently kissing that spot where her neck and shoulder meet (he feels like he is experimenting how many times he can do that before she stops letting out the slightest whimpering sigh; so far he’s pleasantly on the path to never) as he mumbles a low, warm “good morning” into her ear.

She replies by telling him she’s just hanging around until Cameron shows up or that Gisele will be around soon. She launches into a clinical explanation about his need for sustenance to keep up his stamina while seducing whichever celebrity she has in her head that day. He listens attentively to her reasoning for why French toast was necessary or how fried eggs are far superior to scrambled, as he pushes kisses into her back, the nape of her neck, down her arms while his hands move across her stomach, her hips, in her hair.

Cooking is temporarily forgotten so that she blames his distractions and will eventually say, “Well, you’ve made me ruin it. There’s no way Cameron can come by today if you haven’t had a proper breakfast.” Usually this is murmured as he’s pushing her against the counter or licking some sort of syrup from her fingers and he simply says “Lucky me” before continuing with whatever he started.

***

Some mornings, weekday mornings, they sit at the table quietly and eat the cereal she pours and drink the coffee he makes. He shaves and showers in the morning, wearing his undershirt, pants, and socks at the table. She rinses their bowls, adds them to the dishwasher, and leaves him to read the paper while she fixes her hair, dresses. He rinses their cups, adds them to the dishwasher, and takes the stairs up to the bedroom.

He brushes his teeth while she applies minimal makeup. She double checks what she’s wearing in the same mirror where he folds his tie around his neck and through his fingers.

She pulls both of their jackets out of the foyer closet. He meets her at the door with her purse and his messenger bag in tow.

She carries a stainless steel mug of coffee to share. He locks the door.  

They don’t know when they became so in sync, but they can’t really remember a time before, when he had to pour his own cereal and she had to brew coffee.

***

Some mornings she wakes up before the sun rises. When it is still dark, but there is the slightest hint of pink and orange and brown beyond their bedroom window. Jim’s arm is draped across her stomach and her foot is anchored around his ankle.

As the colors slowly start to change, she thinks maybe she should start meditating or taking early morning walks to connect with nature. But she loves sleep so she has never understood waking up early to see the sunrise.

Sunsets she understands. Dusk, even dawn, that lovely moment of life after sunrise, all make sense to her. But waiting for sunrise feels so exhausting.

Whether he detects the changes in her breathing or he has been awake all along, she’ll never know. But he seems to dial in on those rare occasions that she wakes before sunrise. His hand slips tentatively, shyly beneath the elastic band of her panties, finding that small bud between her legs, delighted to be touched. She welcomes it, adjusting her hip so that her whole leg is over his, pushing her rear into his hardening erection, all while humming appreciatively. There’s always a brief and uncoordinated pause to tug down shorts, pants, whatever, until he is inside her and his hand returns.

Their steady rocking continues as he whispers his love, his devotion, his adoration, fiercely into her ear. Her quiet sighs and moaning his name are perfect responses. As she comes, one arm braces against the headboard while her other grasps for his arms, his thighs, the back of his head, anything she can catch to hold him closer.     

And as her body slowly comes down from the waves, his reaches the crests and he holds her body so tightly as his breath raggedly expels her name over and over into her neck and her hair.  Somehow, he always manages to reach this point just as she sees the sky’s colors change and morning forms life.

As they lay in a conjoined heap, she always thinks that sunrise is still exhausting, in all the right ways.

***

Some mornings they snooze the alarm seven times and are snippy with each other as they get ready for work, wondering which one is to blame for the morning rush.

***

Some mornings they wake up on the couch, having fallen asleep while drinking too much wine and starting a movie too late. Sometimes it’s with her feet in his lap and his head against the back of the couch so that he’s left with a crick in his neck. Sometimes it’s with her body draped over his so that her spine feels crooked from being slumped over all night.

***

Some mornings, most mornings, he’s awake before her. Occasionally, she has her arm around him, hand possessively planted on his chest, and her leg wrapped over both of his. If it’s one of those mornings, he doesn’t dare wake her up. A smile crosses his face, amused that it looks like she’s trying to keep him from escaping. They both know she’s not strong enough to hold him down; they both know he’s not going anywhere. As gently as possible, he places his large hand over her smaller one and closes his eyes, absorbing her warm breath on his neck or between his shoulder blades through the cotton of his t-shirt. He remembers a time that sometimes feels both like a lifetime and just a day ago. A time when he told himself that just holding her would be enough for him.  

Today he will be more sentimental, go out of his way more than usual to do little things for her. She’ll give him that adorable look, the one where she screws up her lips in a playfully suspicious smirk while raising an eyebrow, and say, “What’s up with you today?” And he will just say, “I was thinking about you this morning and…” And he’ll trail off, shaking his head, and kiss her hairline and she’ll nod because she gets it.

***

Some mornings they wake up still irritated from an argument the day before. There are nights when they fight it out and nights when they don’t. When they don’t, the bedsheets in the morning tell the story of their separate sleep. An obvious crease down the middle of the bed where they didn’t dare touch each other and the layers flipped back on each side so that it looks like a child trying to fold a sailboat out of paper.  Most mornings, someone will apologize before they can leave the house (it’s usually him) and the other (it’s usually her) will spend the rest of the day finding small ways to right the wrongs of those hours missed being good to each other.

***

Some mornings, on the weekends, he wakes up early to go for a run or play basketball with his friends or get in an early round of golf when she has nothing planned. She wakes up after he’s gone, now able to sleep through his quiet movements through the bedroom, and briefly luxuriates in having the bed to herself. She stretches all four limbs as far as she can and yawns loudly, but the pleasure dissipates quickly. She remembers a time that sometimes feels both like a lifetime and just a day ago. A time when she would love having a bed to herself for the first five seconds of the morning, but then the crash of pain and loneliness and missing him would hit. She would tell herself if she could just see Jim, who was all the way in Connecticut, she would hold him and tell him how she loved him. Later, when he felt impossibly further away but lived only twenty minutes across town, she would tell herself, from the security of her bed, that today was the day she would tell him. All willingness to be vulnerable would leave somewhere on her commute to the office.

Today she’ll get up, make the bed, and keep herself busy. When he gets home, inevitably sweaty and maybe a little tired and possibly grumpy if he didn’t play well, she’ll be in his arms as soon as his key turns in the lock. Her arms will wrap around his neck so that he picks her up and she’ll kiss him, equal parts embarrassed and emboldened how she gets even more turned on when he’s sweaty and naturally stinky. He’ll smile between kisses and ask “What’s that for?” She’ll pull back and look him in the eyes to say, “I love you so fucking much” and then return to kissing him. He’ll make a quip, “You heard that Kevin kicked my ass on the course and you feel bad for me, don’t you?” or “Obviously you heard about my amazing skills on the court today” so that she grins up at him under shy lashes because they both know he saw that little bit of sadness and fear and regret for lost time in her eyes. And he will cup her face in his hands and sigh contentedly, winking at her before he starts returning her kisses because he gets it.

***

Some mornings, on very rare occasions, he will wake up to her kissing him, her warm hands moving under his shirt. It’s different than when she does this on birthdays and anniversaries; this is more needy and selfish and impulsive. So he teases her. He will pretend to stay asleep and then, usually when she’s straddling him and her mouth and tongue are on his neck, he’ll whisper, “I’ve told you I can’t do this. I have a girlfriend/fiancée/wife. I’m happily taken.” Then she always says something dirty in his ear and he groans loudly and forgets to tease her and does whatever she wants.

Inevitably they are unapologetically late on these mornings. And she’ll barely look at him the entire day. When he helps her get something from a high shelf, she’ll give a coy “thanks” and slink back to her desk. At the copy machine one hip will pop out a little more than usual, knowing that he’s watching her, knowing what she’s doing to him.

At lunch, she will just barely brush against him and put featherlight touches on his thigh from time to time, but otherwise ignore him, talking to Kelly instead. He might nod in agreement with whatever show they are dissecting, but in his head he will resort to an old junior high method of silently chanting multiplication tables or the state capitals. It won’t help that Pam is right there talking and all he can hear is her sultry voice from that morning when she practically growled, “Fuck me from behind. Hard” while she was rubbing her clit and, yep, multiplication tables don’t distract him like they used to. As everyone clears out he will scratch his eyebrow and say he will be a few more minutes, that he is going to finish his carrots or get a soda before heading back. She will just kiss him chastely on the cheek with a cheerful “‘kay!” before walking back to her desk, but she knows. God, she knows.

At around three o’clock she will announce she needs a cup of tea, her palm skating across his shoulders as she struts behind his desk and into the kitchen, glancing back at him with noticeable heat. She struts in front of him all the time, naked, fully-clothed, half-dressed; sometimes he thinks she doesn’t even know she’s doing it. But it rarely happens at work, thankfully. Because he can’t help but watch her when she gets full of herself like this. Once he saw Ryan notice Pam walk with a little more swish in her hips, the way her mouth was a little rounded, the faint flush on her cheeks. Ryan licked his lips quickly and blushed before he glanced guiltily at Jim, offered an apologetic shrug when he realized he’d been caught, and went back to the annex, likely to make out with Kelly. It’s always at this time of day that he’s thankful they are rare mornings when she wakes up like this because he knows he would never be able to keep his hands off her at work if this was a frequent occurrence.

By the end of the day, the tables will turn though. She will sweetly and innocently ask if he’s ready to go home and her smile will have a purity that contradicts every signal she’s been sending since she woke up that morning. But he knows that smug look that others don’t notice and that her green eyes go two shades darker when her thoughts are anything but pure. So he will chuckle softly as he shakes his head and offer a clueless smile, say sure or okay or yep, and hold her hand while they follow everyone else out of the building.

Once they are in the car, it will be his turn to be distant in the car. She will chatter about work as though he wasn’t there, she will talk about the weather, she will ask what he wants for dinner. He will reply "whatever," because dinner is the last thing on his mind.

She’ll keep this up until they get through the door when he will immediately pull her to him, her back against his chest, his hands on her hips, his mouth hot at her neck, his voice low and gravelly as he says something like, “Do you have any idea what you did to me today?” or “How do you expect me to keep my hands off you when you do this?”

Her self-satisfied giggling always sounds the same at this point because she starts this torturous game, knowing he will let her win, but in this moment she always feels a little guilty despite being so incredibly turned on, knowing his slightest touch will send her over the edge. She’ll slowly turn around in his arms, run her hands over his chest and say that she’s sorry. He will already be unzipping her skirt in a painfully slow fashion and then his mouth will be on hers. They won’t make it upstairs, but he will return to teasing her until she’s begging.

Once they are finally spent and boneless on whichever surface they make it to, she will say, “I’m going to make dinner.” They will watch each other, both of them trying to catch their breath and not get worked up again and, after a minute, he will always tell her that he’s going to help her. They will put on pajamas and move through the kitchen to make something simple, gentle hands to scoot the other aside, soft caresses when passing something to the other, light kisses on a shoulder.

She will sit on his lap at the table and feed him a few bites. He won’t care that it is a little ridiculous and she won’t care that it feels a little awkward. They will get through a few bites before she slowly turns to straddle him. His hands will lightly run up and down her back; she will steady herself by holding his shoulders, kiss him softly and quietly ask him if he’s still mad at her. He will tell her yes (no, he’s not) and she will kiss him again, moving across his jaw and down his neck and murmur that she’s sorry (no, she’s not).

A little huff will escape from his mouth as her hips move in small torturous circles, both of them lost in the friction through their thin pajamas. He will drop his head back as she seems intent to kiss every inch of his throat. As his eyes close, he will foolishly hope she wakes him up tomorrow the same she did today.   

***

Some mornings turn into afternoon then evening and then the next morning where they barely leave the bed. It used to happen often, in the early days of their relationship, when they were in a cocoon of privacy and exploration and curiosity took precedence over laundry and hobbies and seeing friends or family.  But back then they had a lot to talk through; they found it was easier to uncover vulnerable ground when they were wearing only sheets and the outside world crept in only to answer the door for delivery food and maybe watch television.

These mornings don’t happen often now that their life together is blissfully secure and familiar. So when Jim strokes Pam’s protruding stomach (he’s always doing that now) and asks, “What’s the plan for today?” he expects her to tell him what furniture needs to be assembled, what needs to purchased, what needs to be prepped. But she doesn’t. She looks at him closely and says, “This. I want to do this all day.” And there’s something in her tone that he knows is serious.

They lay on their sides, facing each other and a calm sweeps over them as they quietly talk about work, of all things. He confesses that he’s glad to be back in sales, not just because the money will be better, but that he kind of misses it and comanaging with Michael was a headache. She confesses that she’s excited about the baby coming but that she is happy to have a break from sales because she hates it. He encourages her to look for a new job if she wants to. She tells him that she thinks he was more stressed as a manager than he realized at the time; he agrees.

She giggles and, in her best Jo Bennett accent, calls him a tall glass of sun tea. He shakes his head and laughs a little, asking what that even means. She tries to keep her Southern accent while telling him how handsome he is, but they both become distracted as he plays with the flimsy strap of her camisole.

Then they are discarding clothes into a pile on the floor and he’s asking her if she’s okay until she looks at him pointedly and firmly says “Jim” before she’s back to kissing his exposed chest and stroking him in her hand. He tries not to treat her like glass, tries not to worry if they are hurting the baby. But she’s more sensitive to his touch than she has ever been, like ever, so it becomes easier to not get lost in his worries when she keeps saying “oh my god, like that” and “yes yes yes” and a string of profanities punctuated with his name.

Afterwards, they take a luxuriously long shower together where she just lets him rub every part of her body with this apple soap she used to hate but loves now. Then it’s her turn, but she only manages to soap up his chest, arms, and back before she starts to stroke him and he’s not sure he can come again so soon until he is. He knows it’s louder than normal as her name and his own list of profanities and various deity-thanking bounces off the shower tiles, but he really can’t bring himself to care. Once he finally opens his eyes she has that smug smile on her face and the water starts to go cold.

They wrap up their water wrinkled bodies in big towels and climb back into bed. Pam puts her hair in a messy bun on her head and announces that she’s hungry. He makes several trips between their room and the kitchen; he pretends not to notice that she sips his coffee even though she tells everyone she’s not drinking caffeine because of the baby.

A couple episodes of Friends, some HGTV, a nap, Sudoku, researching their HMO requirements on his laptop, reading through the baby books that go everywhere Pam goes, adding to the various lists she keeps that he still doesn’t understand her “system” for. These are all nice distractions that mingle into those quiet stretches that they spend just talking. Mostly it’s about the baby; how they’re excited, nervous, what they will never do with their kids, what traditions they want to start or create or stop. They talk in the quiet about how they never thought this would happen for the two of them and how they can’t imagine their lives any other way. But they can imagine it, they’ve lived it, and then they both get a little emotional until one of them makes a joke and they’re fine.

Pam falls asleep and the snow starts to fall again. Jim makes a mental note about needing to get the car checked because, god, they are having a baby in a few weeks. He knows he should go assemble something, but there’s a part of him that realizes that his wife was much smarter than him when she suggested this day. This is likely the last time for a long time that they will be able to hide away in a cocoon of just the two of them. And he is so ready for the baby, he’s already picturing playing catch in the backyard with a little brown-haired, green-eyed boy. But he looks at Pam, peacefully asleep, likely dreaming of painting with a little girl with big curls and a bigger smile, and he wants to soak up this time of just the two of them.

She wakes up hungry and Jim is the only one of them to get dressed that day when he meets the Chinese food delivery guy at the door. He returns to only his boxer briefs at Pam’s insistence, stating she plans to only wear a sheet and a quilt until Monday morning. They eat in bed, a towel spread to catch the crumbs, watching Pulp Fiction.

When they play Scrabble she eats ice cream from the pint carton and he drinks a beer and she says she can’t wait to have a really cold beer in the summer because her body is like a furnace lately. At some point, they argue over a word and the game ends abruptly as it always does. They’ve never made it through a full game of Scrabble.

She insists on taking the game back downstairs, claiming she might get bedsores if she doesn’t get up. She returns with Boggle which they are more competitive about but it never ends in an argument.

It’s become one of those days where time has no meaning, so they turn on another movie, but end up spending the time talking, touching each other innocently until they are fully making out. She giggles that he better not get her pregnant because her parents will be so mad. He tells her he would never do that, he doesn’t want people to think she’s easy, and then he’s back to kissing her and feather stroking her nipple.

There’s something in the slow, quiet way that he’s moving, almost reverential, and Pam is overcome with knowing how much this man loves her. It used to scare her when there would be moments and this realization would hit because she’d never been loved and protected so intensely. Her parents certainly hadn’t modeled it for her and Penny. But she and Jim will for their child and she lets her thoughts drift there briefly. When he asks for the fifth time “does that feel okay” she just sighs happily with an “mmhmm,” knowing that he’s treating her like glass because he will always have this need to keep her from being hurt.

She can’t help but love him a little more when he has that adorable, almost boyish grin, as he lifts her hips and slides a pillow underneath her. She briefly wonders if he googled “how to have sex with my pregnant wife” but then she’s not really wondering anything coherent because what he’s doing is absolutely not in any way adorable or boyish and the books weren’t kidding about increased blood flow and sensitive nerve endings.

Afterwards, he looks so proud of himself that she wants to tease him, but instead she lets out a breathy request for him to get her a T-shirt. He’s on his back, getting his own breathing back under control. He gently squeezes her ass and then he’s handing her a pair of maternity underwear and a Foo Fighters T-shirt that he will never say out loud fits in her current thirty-seventh week of pregnancy.          

Pam opens the blinds a little bit when she comes back to bed from the bathroom. The brightness of the snow and an episode of Criminal Minds provide enough light to keep them cozy. Jim spoons behind her, absently stroking her belly.

“We probably should do something tomorrow, babe,” she says, even though that’s the last thing she wants to suggest.

“I know.” He sounds disappointed, but she’s right. He kisses her neck and tugs her a little closer. “But it was a nice day. Or is it morning if we barely made it out of bed?”

She yawns and snuggles closer against him. “Whatever it is, it was nice.”

***

This is the worst morning of Jim’s life. Okay, that’s not at all true and he knows he’s being dramatic and moody but he does not want to leave his house this morning.

He sulks in the kitchen as he eats cereal and drinks coffee. He doesn’t read the paper but returns upstairs as soon as he rinses his bowl.

It doesn’t matter that it’s been two weeks, the sight before him still makes him stop short. Pam’s head propped on one hand as she lays on her side, her favorite sheets with the red flowers on them draped over her hip. Her other arm holding Cecelia close to her breast, cooing at how she’s being a good eater, residual fear lingering about their daughter’s initial slow progress to latch.

Pam smiles up at him as he makes his way to them. “I think she wanted to eat breakfast at the same time as her daddy.”

He lays across the foot of the bed, watching both of them in awe that this is his life.

David Wallace, included in a group text that Jim sent announcing Cece’s arrival, called last week to offer his congratulations and check in on the new father. David warned him that there would be moments like this. Moments where he is so overwhelmed with how incredible Pam is and how fiercely protective he feels of Cece and how the sense of responsibility to these two will occupy every waking moment. David then joked every waking moment that wasn’t spent changing diapers or cleaning spit up or arguing with Pam.

Although he now knows David wasn’t completely joking. Jim and Pam are exhausted and they have different but passionate opinions on swaddling and neither one is completely sure when they last ran the dishwasher.

But Jim would rather be here with the two of them than anywhere else in the world. “I don’t wanna go back,” he says softly into the quiet room, rubbing Pam’s foot through the quilt.

“I know,” she murmurs, still watching Cece. She finally looks at him. “It won’t be too bad.”

He sighs heavily and rolls onto his back. “I just want to be here with you guys.” Even he is annoyed with the whine creeping into his tone.

She doesn’t say anything for a bit until she finally whispers, “She’s out.”

He pushes up to see Cece fast asleep, her little tongue barely thrusting forward as she drifts deeper into a dream. The room is quiet again while he and Pam simply adore her.

“I remember when I used to fall asleep with your boobs in my face.” He says it quietly but Pam’s whole body shakes with silent laughter so that Cece silently startles awake. Pam gently rocks and soothes her, grinning wickedly at Jim the whole time. Cece is back to sleep as quickly as she awoke.

“You’ll get them back one day,” Pam reassures him with a wink. She pokes her foot at him. “We want you home, too.”

For some strange reason that propels him to get his ass in gear and he’s shifting off the bed, heading to his closet. He buttons a blue shirt over his white undershirt. As he’s tucking it in Pam reminds him that it’s St. Patrick’s Day and she already put his tie with green stripes on the dresser. He’s pouting as he ties it around his neck. When he catches her smirking at him he exaggerates the pout even more until she’s shaking her head at him and grinning wildly.

“Alright,” he begins reluctantly. “It’s time.” He kisses them goodbye, whispers his love. As he reaches the door he’s stopped by her soft “hey” so that he turns to look at her expectantly.

“Maybe some morning soon you can call in and play hooky with us.”

She smiles conspiratorially in a way that he has to return.

“Some morning soon,” he promises and then makes his way to work.