It feels wrong that they’ve arrived here, now.

There is no shame in couples needing professional help addressing their issues. Pam knows this intuitively, but what she knows is that it’s true for other couples. It shouldn’t be for her and Jim. 

They walk into the therapist’s office and she wants to take Jim’s hand, but there’s a disconnect they’ve reached she can no longer ignore. Simple touch is a struggle, and it breaks her heart but she cannot deny this is where they are now. She’s tried pretending everything is fine, that they will carry on, that they will get through this rough patch and things will be like they were before. She’s tried, but she’s failed.

Pam is no stranger to failure. It’s just that this -- them -- is something she never thought could fall apart.

The therapist leads them into her office, which is pleasant enough. It smells like lavender and there’s a painting of laughing children in a wagon on the wall across from her. Just cute enough to not be creepy. Dr. Cohen is kind looking, mid-fifties and graying. Pam immediately wonders if this woman is married to the love of her life too, if she can even comprehend the loss she’s feeling right now.

They exchange pleasantries, and the doctor picks up a notepad exactly like Pam imagined she might. 

Everything about this situation feels so cliché: she and Jim are sitting next to each other on a couch, the therapist sits across from them, clicking her ballpoint and tapping her foot. She asks them why they’re here today, and maybe it’s the two cups of coffee Jim hadn’t noticed she’d guzzled before they left, maybe it’s the simmering desperation she’s felt for six months, or maybe it’s just those children in the fucking wagon laughing at her, but suddenly Pam wants nothing more than to get this over with as soon as possible. 

“I’m afraid that I’m losing him,” she blurts out. 

She cannot look at Jim but she can feel him shift a bit, next to her, as he turns to listen. 

“Can you elaborate on that?” Dr. Cohen asks.

Yes, yes she can.

“I feel like he has this whole other life that he’d always rather get back to, and we’re just…” she trails off. 

She doesn’t know how to finish the sentence because she honestly doesn’t believe Jim thinks of his family as inferior to his work. She just doesn’t understand this new Jim, the one with ambition and drive that’s pointed far away from her. The Jim that looks past her now, rather than at her.

Dr. Cohen looks at Pam. “You’re feeling unimportant, is what I'm hearing.”

Pam nods. Jim looks somewhat shocked at this revelation and the doctor picks up on it. 

“Jim, how does that make you feel?”

He looks confused. “Pam, you have to know that isn’t true.”  

She can’t help but identify his tone as more defensive than anything else. She feels like she’s revealed so much already, but her revelation oddly makes her braver, as if her emotions are behind some invisible dam, and with every word another crack appears.

“It reminds me of when you came back from Stamford,” she says. “It was like you were this different Jim. You weren’t fun anymore, you barely talked to me. You said you were ‘evolving.’”

He sits up straight. “That’s not fair. That was an entirely different situation. That was me trying my hardest not to be in love with you.”

She eyes him, not having intended to trap him into admitting something, but the realization that she has indeed done so dawns on them both. 

“You’re right. The situation was very different. But I can’t help that it feels the same.”

Dr. Cohen turns to Jim, attempting to take control of the rapidly spiraling conversation. “Jim, Pam’s just told you what she’s afraid of. Is there anything you’re afraid of?”

He doesn’t look at the therapist, instead just looks into Pam’s eyes as if he’s truly feeling the weight of their problems for the very first time. She tries her best to decipher what she sees in his expression, but it feels like there’s a mist between them that’s been turning slowly into a thick fog. She desperately wants to reach him, but she doesn’t know how.

“I guess…” he searches for his words, “I’m afraid that she doesn’t believe in me. That I can actually do this, turn this company into something amazing.” He looks right at Pam. “That the real reason she won’t commit to this is because she’s waiting for me to quit. Like she did.”

The jab slices properly. It’s not the harshness, or the meanness that hurts: it’s his deadly accuracy.

To his credit, he immediately looks ashamed. “I’m sorry, Pam. That came out wrong.”

“No it didn't,” she says. “You’re right. I did quit. But it was my choice. To come home, because I wanted to be here with you more than I wanted to go back. And it wasn’t even a difficult choice.”

She knows that he really does understand deep down why she’d quit art school. But she’s also suspected, especially over the past few months, that the two of them are simply built differently. Her passion for Jim had easily overridden her passion for those classes at that time. And Jim, now, well… she feels like he only has enough passion for one thing, and he’s choosing his work. It hurts.

Dr. Cohen sits back into her chair and regards her closely. “And Pam, you feel like Jim is choosing this job over you?”

“I don’t think he’s doing it to hurt me,” she clarifies. “But… yes.”

Jim is what makes her happy. She can’t think of anything in her entire life that has ever made her happier. She used to believe she made him just as happy, but now she’s terrified that he’s found something else. 

“I just don’t understand why I can’t have both,” Jim says, and shakes his head. “Things are tough right now, but I have faith they’ll get better. And if we both just hang on…” he turns to the therapist, slightly pleadingly. “I mean, shouldn’t she want to support me? If this is something I really want to do?”

“I have been supportive,” Pam protests before the therapist can interject. “I have been incredibly supportive, Jim, especially considering the fact that you took this job without telling me, and that our situation keeps changing without my approval or consent.”

Dr. Cohen eyes Jim. “How long has all this been going on, Jim?”

He looks helplessly at Pam, and she can tell he’s doing some mental math. “I mean… I started commuting in December, so it’s been about four months, I guess.”

“You were telecommuting two months before that.” 

“Well yeah, but I was home then,” he tries to explain. “I was there.”

Pam raises an eyebrow. “Were you?” 

Jim sighs. This job has taken every ounce of his energy, every thought, every waking moment, and they both know it. Time away from her, away from their family.  

“This job is important to me, Pam.”  

“Aren’t we important to you, too?” she says, suddenly feeling courage she’s been suppressing for months. “I don’t think you really understand how hard it’s been for me here, doing everything without you. And have I complained? No. Because you said you didn’t want any more stress. I didn’t want to make your life more stressful.”

They are both quiet for a minute, until the therapist speaks up. “Holding things inside isn’t healthy, and it’s important to speak your truths. Honesty is important. So, Pam, I would like you to tell Jim something you haven’t told him that maybe you’d like to.”

Honesty. If they’d been honest with each other from the start, they wouldn’t be in this position, she knows that much. 

She takes a deep breath and turns to her husband. 

“I don’t like Philly. I don’t want to move our family there. In fact,” she turns back to the therapist, “before all of this even started, Jim and I agreed we wouldn’t.” She turns back to Jim. “So when you told me a few weeks ago that this was all coming out of the blue, I can’t believe you really think that.”

She is speaking her truth, and it’s something. She doesn’t like Philly, she doesn’t want to move to Philly. But there’s more and she knows it. What she really wants to tell him is that she’s afraid of being left behind. That Philly Jim with his new Philly job isn’t the same Jim she fell in love with. That he’s not the same Jim she married. And that, if she’s being perfectly honest, she doesn’t really like this new Philly Jim very much, either.

He sighs. “We did agree we wouldn’t. But I didn’t realize how serious you were about it at the time. And I wish you’d told me earlier.”

She tries to recall the moment he told her he’d taken the job, that his dreams were coming true, that Athlead was really happening. She’d wanted to be happy for him, proud of him, everything she should have felt at the time. But all she could think about was that he’d kept it from her for weeks. That he’d broken her trust, and for what? She still doesn’t know.

“You wish I’d told you earlier?” she challenges him. “Well, I wish you’d been honest with me from the beginning, Jim.”

This is what’s really bothered her for months. This was the moment he stopped being Jim and started being this other person she didn’t recognize: a person who kept secrets and made decisions and plans without her. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done things like this before -- his clandestine purchase of their house leaps to her mind again -- but at least in those moments he could anticipate her reacting favorably. Disguised as a grand romantic gesture, it was still something for them, for their family. For their future. 

As much as she wants Jim to follow his dreams, Athlead never felt like that, not from the start. 

Jim doesn’t seem to know how to respond. She doesn’t like the idea she’s hurting him, but she’s so relieved to be talking to him at all, she presses on.

“I wanted to be there for you when all this started, I swear I did,” she says. “And then when I found out you’d taken the job without telling me, I just… it made me feel so small, Jim. Like my opinion didn’t even matter. And then it felt impossible for me to really, truly get onboard.”

Dr. Cohen turns to Jim. “Is there a reason you kept this a secret from Pam?”

Jim looks slightly trapped, and she hates that she feels bad, but she does. This is supposed to help bring them back together, not divide them even further.

“I guess…” he scrambles, presumably for some excuse, but she looks him in the eyes with every bit of sincerity she can muster and he seems to crumble. He clicks his jaw a couple times and looks down. “I figured you wouldn’t like it. I did it anyway.”  

Pam waits for the doctor to have some kind of aha! moment, to turn to Pam and say you are in the right, he made a huge mistake and now you’re both paying for it. But she doesn’t. And truth be told, it isn’t even what Pam wants to hear. She doesn’t want to be right. She doesn’t care about any of that. She just wants her life back. She just wants her husband to smile at her the way he used to, to hold her and tell her everything will be fine the way he always did, back when they were both always on the same page.

She eyes him. “I guess we’ll never know, will we?” 

She says it slightly more harshly than she intends. But it’s true. If he’d approached this entire situation differently from the beginning, who knows where they might have landed? It’s not that she was inherently opposed to any of this. She’d simply grown so tired of him making huge decisions on his own. She’d hit her limit.

Dr. Cohen speaks up, but rather than calling Jim out on his selfish decision, she turns to Pam instead. 

“It’s clear that Jim kept his true intentions from you, but you also kept your truth about the sacrifices you’ve been making at home from him. Can you tell him why?”

The language the therapist is using feels so clinical and foreign. But Pam wants this to work, badly, so she reaches for the answer. 

“I should have told him, I guess. But I didn’t because… well, I thought the less I burdened him with, the quicker this would all be over.”

“So you do want this to be over,” Jim retorts. “This job, Philly, all of it.”

She gathers every single ounce of courage she has left over from that coal walk six years ago to speak her next truth. 

“Maybe I do.”

He shakes his head. “This is the first time I’m doing work that means something to me, that I’m excited about. I thought that you of all people would understand that, Pam.”

Jim looks at her miserably. She can tell he's incredibly upset. He doesn’t want to give up this job, and she doesn’t want him to have to. The last thing she wants to do is crush his dream. But everything is so fucked up right now. She doesn’t know what to do.

“I do understand that,” she says. “And I want you to have that, Jim. What I don’t understand is how you can’t see that this -- this situation, right now -- isn’t working for our family. For us, Jim.”

How does she tell him she doesn’t know how to have both? That she doesn’t see a way out of this tunnel if they’re moving in two different directions? 

“Remember? Us.”

They look at each other for an extended silence, and all she wants is to see that same spark in his eyes she remembers before all of this began. Back when she felt like she was his favorite thing to look at.

“This might be slightly abrupt,” the doctor asks, interrupting the heated moment, “but... when was the last time you two were intimate?”

Pam is indeed taken aback by the forwardness of the question. Jim shifts uncomfortably next to her.

“Oh. Well, it’s tough, you know,” he starts to answer, in a clear effort to dodge the question. “With the kids and… and I’ve been gone a lot.”

“My birthday,” Pam answers.

Jim turns to look at her. “No, really?” He looks slightly chagrined. “That’s not…”

“Six weeks,” she announces, equally upset. The words sound ugly coming out of her mouth; false, incomprehensible. 

Six weeks. 

They repeat in her brain on a loop, taunting her. Forget about the sex. When was the last time he’d kissed her? Or even hugged her? 

She’s been sleeping on Jim’s side of the bed every night he’s been gone for weeks, just to feel close to him; to breathe him in, try to remember what it felt like to really have his arms around her. She’d become so used to his absence, practically numb to it, that the stripped-down reality of where they are -- where they’ve been for some time -- slams into her with the ferocity of a sledgehammer, and Pam cannot hold in her tears anymore. She folds over into her lap, her hand across her face, and sobs. This is deep, real love, the kind she would die for, and it feels like everything is crashing down around her.

The worst part isn’t even the crying, the worst part is that Jim would typically pull her into his arms and hold her close against him, say comforting things into her hair, never wanting anything in the world to cause her pain, least of all himself. Now, all he can muster is a hand softly resting on her shoulder. She can feel his restraint, his trepidation, as if he’s worried she wouldn’t welcome his touch, when all she wants is to feel it again. 

“Please don’t cry,” he says, and she can hear real pain in his voice. She knows he doesn’t want to hurt her, that he’s not doing any of this deliberately. But she hates how strange and unnatural it all feels. “Please, Pam.”

“It’s important you see how all of this is affecting her, Jim,” Dr. Cohen says. “You both need to take advantage of these opportunities to hear each other, to know how the other is actually feeling.” She hands a box of tissues to Pam, and she takes one, attempting to control her emotions.

“Marriage is work,” Dr. Cohen continues. “It isn’t the answer, it’s the equation. And it’s about showing up for each other. Choosing each other every day.”

Pam closes her eyes, completely exhausted. She knows this, has known it for years. But she can’t remember the last time she and Jim actually chose each other. 

She thinks about what they’d always said to each other in the past, that they were the only thing that mattered. 

Us. 

She wonders if they’ll ever feel that way again.

Dr. Cohen gives them their therapy homework, says her goodbyes, and they are alone again, walking silently to the car. Jim awkwardly opens her door, and while she’s glad he’s at least trying, the act feels so forced and empty. 

She sits and waits the excruciating six seconds of deafening silence after he slams her door shut and walks to the driver’s side, and they don’t say much the entire drive home. She’s reminded of their first date, and wishes they could go back. Hopefulness, determination, expectation. The things she should be feeling are drifting around the car like an errant vapor but all she can feel is dread.

Jim, sensing the tension in the car, reaches over to take her hand. She clasps it tightly, afraid to let go.

It’s not much, but right now what she needs is something. 

The “I love yous” are the first to go.

She remembers when she first noticed: it was Christmas, when Jim left on his first trip to Philadelphia. She’d stood at the taxi and waited for him to say it, to tell her the most important words she could possibly hear as he was leaving her like this for the first time, but he didn’t. And she didn’t want to be the wife left standing in the parking lot without an “I love you” so she’d said it to him first as he was climbing into the car. He responded in kind, but even then it felt like an afterthought. 

She’d brushed it off; he was simply excited about the new job, his new opportunity. It didn’t mean anything, of course it didn’t. But apparently it had only been the beginning. It seems that, over time, saying it has gotten less and less important. Less natural. 

She dares not wonder if it’s become less true. 

At first it’s just at home, whenever he’s around; she hears his footsteps in the other room, sees the dishes in the sink, notices his towel is damp. It’s physical evidence he’s existing in their space, and she is grateful he’s here. But there are no more words of affirmation. They operate in necessary silence. Sometimes it feels as if he may as well still be gone. 

Soon, they stop saying it over the phone. She senses its absence after a while, and chalks it up to a missing formality, just saving time. Then she realizes how terrible that sounds. Without his physical presence, words are all they have, and they’ve stopped using them.

They used to say it all the time: before bed, when they would wake in the morning. After making love, sometimes during. She’d felt loved. She’d always tried to make sure he felt it too. Saying the words didn’t make it so, but for the longest time the words merely supported what their actions already showed: their passion for each other had been a well-oiled machine, kept, maintained, functional.

But next to go is touch. There seems to be no time anymore, and whenever there is time, passion is replaced with ambivalence. It feels perfunctory and rehearsed.  She’s starting to feel the way she did with Roy and whenever that abhorrent thought enters her mind she immediately banishes it; she has no desire to examine it. 

Sometimes she worries she loves Jim too much, and that this life they’ve built together is perhaps suffocating from the weight of it. That maybe her desperation to hold on to him is actually holding him back from the things he really wants, from the things he really needs.

Which are apparently all these things that are not her.

The chasm between them is wide and she doesn't know how to bridge it anymore. Words are gone. Touch is gone. 

What is left for them?

Will mics her up. Emily, another camera operator, sets up the camera in its usual place. Delilah sits across the room. 

“So, now that we’re alone, how’s the counseling really going?” the producer asks.

Pam shrugs, looks at her lap. “I thought it went pretty well, I guess. At least it got us talking. But I suppose Jim thinks it’s kind of silly.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know. He’s not taking it very seriously, I don’t think.”

Over the years, Pam has caught on to the way Delilah looks at her when she’s waiting for more she knows is there. Pam isn’t sure how much she wants to reveal. In general, she tends to keep her deepest fears close to the vest, or at least tries to do so. But she feels like she’s given everything she has at this point. Maybe there’s nothing to lose anymore. And although she knows the crew is filming her, that any of this could come out at a later point for anyone to see, including Jim, it doesn’t seem to matter. There are times when these are just people in her life she’s become so comfortable with that she stops caring that the cameras are even there. 

For some reason it helps to talk. It’s always helped to talk. 

“Actually, I think… he hasn’t really been himself lately.” 

The second the words are out of her mouth she knows this is the problem, the real problem. It’s not about the distance, or the new job. Even being home alone with the kids. Because if she felt as solid in her relationship with Jim as she’s supposed to, none of that should really  matter. 

She shakes her head in disbelief, remembering what he’d said in their session. 

“He said I don’t believe in him. I don’t know why he would think that. It’s just not true. I’ve always thought Jim wasn’t living up to his potential. Always. I guess I’ve gotten so used to him sticking around that I never really considered what moving on from here would look like for him. How it might... change him.”

The producer tilts her head compassionately, as if she understands. Pam is somewhat relieved to know the change has been real and noticeable to more than just herself. 

“He’s just so obsessed with his work now. I feel like there’s no space for the old Jim anymore.” 

“Tell me about the old Jim,” Delilah prompts.

Pam smiles, warm memories stirring. “He used to come talk to me at reception all the time. He probably had work to do, but it didn’t matter. I’m sure you caught that on film, like, a lot,” she laughs. “He was just… so funny, and thoughtful. Kind. He never lost his temper.”

She thinks about that horrible night on the phone, how the old Jim would never have talked to her that way in a million years.

“And he isn’t those things anymore?”

“Well, maybe he is. I wouldn’t know, because he’s never around.”

Delilah cocks her head sympathetically. 

Pam shakes her head again. “Maybe I’m just being selfish, but I miss the Jim who joked and laughed and goofed around. The Jim who always made the time to show me how much he cared about me.”

She doesn’t want to admit her greatest fear, the scariest possibility of all: that he is no longer the Jim that she knew, and they are no longer the them that they were. Speaking it into existence is terrifying.  

Pam looks up. “Do you remember a few years ago when I’d gotten accepted into art school? Things were just beginning for us. There were no kids, no roots, really. And he was so supportive, he really was. I sat in this room and told you everything was perfect.” 

She smiles a bit wistfully. Perfect.

“I know it probably feels from the outside like it should be his turn, and it’s not that I don’t think he should have his turn, I just…” she gestures helplessly. “Things are not perfect right now, not by a long shot. His timing is terrible. And the way it all began? As a secret?” 

The producer nods, and Pam feels like she understands. 

“I get that he loves this job, I really do. And I wish I could just... be happy for him, and that would be the end of it. But things are just so awful, and getting worse, and it’s like… he thinks this can wait.” She puts her hand across her heart. “This can wait, and that needs his attention right now.”

Delilah doesn’t speak, just watches and listens with a melancholy look in her eyes Pam has never seen before.

“I’m just… I’m tired of waiting.”

She’s tired of feeling this way, that she’s just not as important to him as she used to be. Is this too much to expect? Doesn’t she deserve as much from the man she loves? 

“I'm afraid that maybe we don’t want the same things anymore. That being happy and content with our life here just isn’t enough for him. That speaking our truths and appreciating our sacrifices isn’t going to be enough.”

“Will you talk about that in counseling?” Delilah asks.

Pam shrugs sadly. “I don’t know. I’m worried that it’s too late. I wish we’d started this exercise six months ago. My heart just feels so... blocked up.”

Delilah sits and listens, and it seems she’s mirroring Pam’s helpless expression. These people have been Pam’s constant companions for years and she knows they care about her, and about Jim. About the two of them together. It weirdly feels like this is all hitting Delilah as hard as it’s hitting herself.

“I keep thinking about a moment, a night years ago, when everything changed for us.” She’s unsure of how to say what she wants to say. Even now, it’s unclear exactly how much the documentary crew has seen and observed about her and Jim’s relationship. “Jim told me how he felt about me, and I just sort of panicked. I wasn’t brave. But he was. He fought for me. He risked everything.”

The crew exchange subtle glances and she suspects they probably do know exactly the night she’s talking about. Parabolic mics, hidden camera crews. She now supposes nothing has ever really been off the table.

“That Jim fought for me. And now it just feels like he doesn’t want to fight anymore, for this. For us.”

The crew is only slated to be around for a couple more weeks. They’re all going to wrap filming and go home, regardless of what happens with her and Jim. The idea that their story might end like this is devastating.

“I suppose he would argue that I’m not fighting, either,” she continues. “That I should just uproot our family and move to Philadelphia. And… I could do that, I guess. But the truth is I really don’t think it will change what’s wrong at this point.” Her eyes feel wet now and it’s so hard to breathe. “Something is broken here and I don’t know how to fix it.”

The conference room is absolutely silent. She isn’t sure she’s ever heard it this way in all the time she's been here.

She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a folded piece of paper. It’s the winners/ losers sign Jim made for her a year ago: Pam, Cece, and Phillip on the winners side. Everything else on the losers side. 

“Remember this?” She looks at it and smiles. She shouldn’t take it too seriously, she knows that. Maybe she’s over-romanticizing their relationship. But there’s a good reason she always keeps it in her purse. When Jim made it for her, he meant it. It breaks her heart to think it might not be the same anymore.

Suddenly she hears a loud click in the room and with a series of melancholy, descending beeps that seem to mock the way she’s feeling, the camera shuts off. 

Emily grunts in frustration. “Sorry, something’s wrong with the camera,” she explains. 

She sets it down to inspect it, and Pam wipes a tear, folds the chart back up and puts it back into her pocket. 

“Can I take a break, please?” she asks quietly.

“Of course,” Delilah says, looking at her with such sympathy Pam wants to leave as quickly as possible. “Come back whenever you feel like talking.”

Pam gets up and walks out of the conference room. Jim is at his desk working, his back to her. No one else looks up. She walks over to her desk, praying he can’t tell she’s been crying. Again.

He glances up at her briefly. “Hey, everything okay?”

“Yep.” She opens her desk drawer and grabs her phone, slips it into her pocket. “Just gonna go get some air.” She turns and walks out of the office, feeling his eyes on her as she does.

It’s only about three o’ clock, and today has already been so intense she feels completely drained. She can’t talk to the camera crew, and she certainly can’t talk to Jim.

She sits down on the bench around the side of the building, staring at the spot where Jim told her he was in love with her all those years ago. 

She pulls out her phone and dials.