Gold.

There was no other word to describe the sky that morning.

Drowsiness from the early hour wasn’t the only thing that had Jim reverently quiet.

It was the brilliant radiance of the sun breaking over the horizon, glints of light filling the surrounding atmosphere with a metallic overlay, as if his golden lid, the one that pulled him back to her, was magnified and draped across the sky.

He’d seen other sunrises before this one. More often than not he was out before the sun, on his way to work as the morning star lit up the clouds with a gleaming edge as it rose into the AM sky.

But he’d never watched a sunrise with her before.

He usually liked to sleep in on the weekends, especially now that he awoke with her nestled into his body, her copper curls tickling his chest as she began to stir from the stream of morning haze that escaped through the blinds and dropped speckles of gold into the air.

She’d discovered the spot at Nay Aug Park while he was still working in Stamford by way of an assignment for her first art class. She’d shown him the painting after they’d gotten together, which was spectacular and had him in awe of her talent, but she insisted he witness the inspiration in person, her rendition could never do it justice. 

He was glad she insisted. There was something about this spot and seeing it through her artist’s eye that made him understand why she dragged him out of bed to share the moment. Aside from the beauty in the sky, there was splendor in the experience, the way her fingers felt in his as he took it in, the way he felt her smiling at him, like rays of sun themselves. This moment that he once thought never could happen was finally real, she was finally his. 

They walked hand in hand in a comfortable silence taking in the magnificence as the sky went from a deep ebony black to rich royal purple before strands of copper like the ones in her hair, danced through the morning sky slowly gaining in their gleam as they expanded over the landscape stretched out in front of them

“I know it’s early for you. But it’s worth it, isn’t it?”

Jim could barely speak – murmuring his agreement then pulling her close to drop his lips to the crown of her head, where the gold of the sun seemed to be spun into her hair.

“I’m so glad I can share this with you,” she whispered. “Let’s come back again to take in a sunset. Similar look. Less ungodly hour.”

-

Therapy was different from what Toby had told him it would be. Maybe their therapist had different methods, different ways to get them to connect and hear each other and find their way back.

Their therapist started by asking questions just like Toby said she would. But it was exercises like these neither of them expected.

Today, they started the session not by talking, but as instructed to, by sitting in silence, holding hands, eyes closed and thinking of an early memory they experienced together. She told them it didn’t have to be a big moment just one that happened only by having each other in their lives.

Jim had so many moments to recall but it was this sunrise that he saw as his lids dropped, this moment he described when the therapist asked what they thought of.

And Pam had a similar vision.

Hers was of a sunset, at the same beach where she’d finally let out all the feelings she’d been holding back for a year. They’d returned there often that summer, enjoying the sand and the scenery without the rest of their officemates, and on the night she described, they spent a whole day talking not realizing how fast the time flew by as they shared. As the other beachgoers sharing the space departed the scene along with the sun, they remained on the golden sand watching the jewel-toned sky fade to a blanket of diamonds glistening in the ebony sky. He recalled what they did once the cover of night took over, the risqué deed they engaged in under the blanket, but still in a public place, a first for both of them.

She didn’t mention this bit in her description to the therapist but he knew she remembered that part too. It was this brazen act, that opened a world of more adventurous exploration with each other and one that she subtly hinted about via puckish IMs on dull days at the office when free cell and pranks weren’t enough to drive away the boredom.

Jim saw it as hopeful, a positive sign that the memories they shared were like bookends, him picturing the early morning sunrise they experienced together, she the sunset they took in together.

At least he did, until the therapist remarked how interesting it was that his vision was about new beginnings while she brought up the day’s end.

~~~

Days after the first session, Pam sat in a playground watching Cece run around a new play space while Phillip took a late afternoon nap she knew she’d regret letting him take when he would refuse to go to down that night. She felt a little guilty for not heading back to the office after the last-minute cancellation from the prospective new CRM software company but not enough to forgo the opportunity it gave her to take her daughter to play while still light out on an unusually warm, early spring day.

She only wished Jim were here with her to share it. But she knew even if he was here, he might not be really here.

Just like he had once before, he seemed to be leaving some of himself in another city even when he came back every couple of days.

It must have been why she thought of that memory, because it happened in that same place. The memory of that day they shared at the beach was always accompanied by the memory of another night they were together there. The one when she summoned him back from Stamford, 6 months after he returned to Scranton.

But the thing the therapist pointed out about their memories was the conflict of their visions and perhaps she knew of what she spoke. Despite the idyllic stretches of their past they were still at odds with what they wanted for the future and they still hadn’t been able to work out how to reconcile their divergent desires.

But it had only been one session as the therapist said, an introduction to the process not a one and done fix.

Still, she was haunted by how they had wound up with a therapist at all. How had they gone from the couple who had no secrets to one that could only communicate with a third party to help facilitate the exchange of words from one to another.

She thought again about what it took to break Jim out the last time he’d gone inward. It took her own bravery, strength from her to tell him what she wanted or at least what she felt. But she was so tired now and she didn’t know how much strength she could muster up this time.

Phillip stirred in the stroller letting out a whimper of a cry before he resettled again, flipping his limp head to the other shoulder. She knew it was trouble letting him sleep this long but Cece seemed so happy as she climbed through crawl tubes, slithered down the mini slide and played conductor in the playground’s train apparatus. She knew once he woke up it would be time to go so she let him go on sleeping knowing full well she’d pay for it that night. 

They were at a different playground, one midway between her mom’s house and the one closest to her home, where she and Jim took the kids on weekends. She’d planned to stop at that one, but the traffic from her mom’s was terrible and so not to waste precious daylight time she found a new place for Cece to play that afternoon.

But Cece didn’t seem to notice, taking the opportunity to explore the new jungle gyms and slides as a welcome adventure. She had no fear of the new locale or the unfamiliar children that also ran through the space.

 As she sat and watched her daughter, she thought more about her own fears of change. How her fears paralyzed her, but sometimes with good reason she self-rationalized as she thought again of her decision to go to art school in New York and her choice to leave with Michael.

Pratt, in the end it was a failure. But Jim always reminded her how much she gained from her experience, skills that she could apply in other art disciplines, confidence from trying something new but most of all she learned graphic design wasn’t the kind of art she wanted to do, something she would have always wondered about had she not had the courage to try at it.

The Michael Scott Paper Company. How she ever thought this was a good idea was beyond her, but she got swept up in his excitement and was still feeling lost after coming back to her old unfulfilling job following art school. But even this fiasco, Jim often reminded her, got her out from behind the reception desk and into something she was good at, not sales she soon discovered, but office management the job she boldly made for herself.

The more she thought about it the more she realized how overcoming her fears had huge rewards. The biggest one, she suddenly realized was Jim. It was fear that almost lost him. Fear of getting out of a relationship that was no longer fulfilling her, fear of admitting what she was feeling, fear of change.

It could have had a different ending, had fate not stepped in. Fate and courage, fate and fearlessness, fate and stepping out of her comfort zone and finally speaking out, no matter who heard her. Only in getting past her fear of change did she get everything she ever wanted, him, a beautiful life together, and their two children.

But this was different, he was asking her to make a change when there wasn’t a need. They were happy, things were good, their life seemed perfect just as it was.

And now here they were again. In a place of pain and silence and half presence. Was she to blame for fears she couldn’t help? No, at least not on her own. He set this in motion, without her. And as usual he expected her to play catch up.

~~~

Jim took another look at the notes in front of him. They weren’t the month’s projections for Athlead or timelines for Wade. They were the things about Pam that made him fall in love with her.

It was part of the homework assigned after the second session with the marriage counselor.

It was hard to squeeze out more time in the day to devote to these written assignments but if it would help, he would find the time, although Jim couldn’t quite understand how writing about the past would fix the problems of the present.

There were things he knew he loved about his wife. Qualities that hadn’t changed since he first met her. But there were a million things more he couldn’t quite define. But he did his best to write them down as he was instructed to.

He had written how the beauty of her smile seemed custom made for him and that laugh, he could listen to it all day, especially when he knew it was from an impression he portrayed, a look he flashed or a prank he played on an unsuspecting officemate or even her.

She was still his best friend; his heart still skipped a beat when she walked in a room and he never got bored of hearing her stories, even when he’d heard them a dozen times before. She could still go head-to-head with him on his banter and pranks, giving as well as she got but her warmth and kindness still shined through in everything she did.

Her talent still blew him away, the way she could create such beauty from nothing with paint and pencils and though she still couldn’t embrace it, the computer programs she’d taught herself, learning more from her own experimentation than what she had at the school of design she attended for three months.

She was his support and his biggest cheerleader, his champion and partner in crime and the way she would look at him, with such admiration made him feel invincible and granted him a confidence that he knew he wouldn’t have achieved without her.

No, none of it had changed for him, if anything everything he’d felt had exploded when she gave him their two beautiful children and he watched her grow to the wonderful mother she had become. And watching her blossom over the years as she stepped out of the shadow of self-doubt and insecurity only made him fall deeper in love.

But now he was screwing everything up.

He knew it was his fault. With everything he loved about his wife, he knew she wasn’t perfect. She had her flaws, her stifling fear of what was new and different was one of the biggest ones. It was the thing that almost made him lose her. Her risk-aversiveness often was what had her giving up, sometimes before the hand was even dealt.

Jim knew he was often too much the opposite, impulsive and risky. But there was one time in his life when he held back and the waiting too long almost cost him everything. Once he gained back what he’d gambled away with his silence, he decided never again would he let that happen. It was why he often acted first and thought about the consequences later.

But his impetuosity led to this new trouble, a second time he hadn’t played his cards right.

He made his opening mistake not telling her as he set up his hand. He knew in doing that he had taken his riskiest move yet.

But when he went all in, that was where the real damage began.

Going all in had never worked for him, at least not when it came to Pam. It was only when she showed her cards that he made the right play. But this time she wasn’t showing the cards he wanted to see and he went ahead and took the gamble anyway and now they were here in marriage counseling trying to get back what they’d lost so fast.

The other thing he knew about his wife was how she kept her own cards close to her chest, having trouble sharing her true feelings about something if she thought he’d be disappointed with what she was thinking or had to say. So she often held things in, holding her emotions in check like tiny bubbles in a can of soda, still under containment while problems and worries stayed slight.

But a little tremor and things would start to agitate.

Another jiggle and the pressure would build.

Shake, shake, shake, until the frustrations and anger burst out like a carbonated beverage exploding everywhere creating a sticky mess like the one they were in now.

It first happened before they were even dating, when he pushed her to take chances in spite of Roy’s disapproval. It happened again when they had their first real fight, when she’d been scared to meet his friends and he couldn’t understand why she kept making excuses every time he brought it up.

And it happened this past Halloween, when she’d reached her breaking point with his secrecy and his going off script in decisions that should have been both of theirs to make.    

But what he realized finally, after the many fights that followed that one, was that this time it was him who had not been forthcoming; he who kept his secrets. It was him having the misplaced explosions. Like the one about the recital. It wasn’t really about the fact she had trouble with her phone and missed recording it. He knew it and so did she. But at that moment, the lack of communication and mutual misunderstanding reached its combustion point.

“I'm doing this just for me? Is that what I'm doing? I'm doing it just for me. If that's what you think, then this is a really sad night.”

He knew it all came down to her not grasping just how much he needed this. How it was his art school, something he had to try or forever regret not going for. But he never let her in on just what he was feeling, just how stagnant and worthless he was starting to feel in the job that had taken him as far as he could go. How he felt he was failing her and the family and himself by not chasing his own dream and not providing more for them, the kind of more that would let her start a business as a muralist or go back to study the kind of art she wanted to; to find a pursuit that would fulfill her more than managing an office and their household.

It was the fact he was failing on two fronts that led him to lash out that night; in the business that was hitting more snags than he’d anticipated and in his marriage that was doing the same.

This time it was him keeping his cards hidden, and that night he was the soda under pressure. Keeping it closed didn’t prevent the bubbles from building inside. The guilt and the disappointments and the arguments and the fatigue all still churning inside causing a tumultuous expansion which he couldn’t prevent from becoming the eventual explosion that left her in tears. Tears he’d learned about on Valentine’s day from the boom mike operator instead of from her.

The worse of it was that had he just been honest and open from the start, she would surely been behind him just as she always had been. He only hoped it wasn’t too late to fix the mess he created.