Days blend in together. One just like the other. Wake up to a cold bed. Get the kids ready. Diapers. Colorful t-shirts. A shoe that is always missing. Cereal spilled on the kitchen floor and she knows she won’t have time to clean until tonight. Because, always in a hurry, she would get the kids into a car that smells like spilled milk and she would try her best to sing along enthusiastically as she drives Cece and Philip to daycare.

In the afternoon, she’d both long for and dread the time when she has to get back in the car - where does that smell come from anyway? - and she tries to enjoy her five minutes of grown up music. Sometimes she even forgets to turn the radio on and it’s just silence. Filled with automatic thoughts. Get wipes. And milk. Do something about Philip’s diaper rash.

The moment she sees the kids again she forces a smile on her face. She really loves them and she is truly happy to see them. But deep down there is something that makes every smile an ordeal and it's not her. Nor her kids.

She tries to keep her outburst of impatience to a minimum. Bath. PJs. Story time. And she counts the seconds it takes Cece to fall asleep, making mental plans of watching something on TV with a glass of wine. Even though she knows she’s kidding herself. She’s a master at that.

Barely after nine she collapses on a cold, almost foreign bed. No wine, no crappy TV. Just a phone call, full of automatic responses to his automatic questions. I love yous that feel like that old piece of gum you’ve forgotten to throw away.

And Pam closes her eyes, dreaming to have a dream of her own.