She hasn't been sleeping well. Long stretches of night spent worrying about the future, and beating herself up for the past. Any amount of sleep felt like a miracle at this point. So it wasn't surprising that she was awake at three am on a Sunday, the time when Roy decided to call her. He was slurring his words when she picked up, incoherent nonsense being spewed into the phone. All she could make out was a garbled, “I'm getting my stuff back, you can't keep it forever.” before she hung up.
Sure, it was inevitable that he would come back for his belongings, (he had only left with a duffel bag full of hastily packed clothes, his wallet, and his toothbrush, afterall), but why did it have to be so soon? And why did she have to hear about it from a drunken phone call?
“I guess that's just the way it is,” she sighed to herself.
She decided to get up and start going through his stuff. As she dug through closets, pulling out t-shirts and shoes, she couldn't stop thinking about what it all meant. The little league trophies he had saved, or the photo of her that once sat on his nightstand. It all made up a life that was now gone. She didn't know if he would soon become nothing more than a name on a paper, a story she tells their child. But just the thought of it sent a chill through her whole body. It was never meant to be like this, and that's a hard thing to face.
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He came over around two thirty that afternoon. He looked hungover and exhausted, his body a crumbling mess.
“Hey,” she said as she let him in, trying to ignore his obvious B.O.
“Hey,” he said back while making his way down the hall and into the bedroom. She had boxed up everything she could find and left them by the closet, hoping that it would make the vist as quick and painless as possible. He got on his knees and began to look through the boxes, turning over the photos and shirts in his hands. After a moment he closed the boxes back up and looked at her.
“I think you got everything,” he told her. She nodded, knowing that if she spoke she would break. What he did was inexcusable, but this was still a man she had built a life with. The man whose engagement ring she had worn for the past three years. It was hard to say goodbye, to let go of the person who was once so all consuming for her.
She stood in the hall, watching him take box after box to the car. When he was done she handed him a glass of water, an action that felt so eerily normal to do. After he finished the water he looked her up and down and asked her the question she had been dreading.
“Can I have the ring?”
She used all the courage she had left to nod, and get the ring from her jewelry box. She had nested it between her old locket and a bracelet that had once belonged to her mew maw. A spot where it was hidden from view, where she wouldn't have to confront the past everyday.
His hand was open when she came back to the kitchen. She placed the ring on his palm, watching the sparkle of the diamond disappear into his fist.
“Thank you.” he said, even if he wasn't able to meet her eye.
“You're welcome.” she said.
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“Are you doing anything today?” she asked Jim, holding the phone up to her ear as she waited for his response. She could hear that he was watching TV, “Survivor” was on in the background.
“No, why?” he questioned her.
“I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out. Maybe get some food, wander around a bookstore. You know, Sunday stuff.” she said, shrugging even though he couldn't see her.
“Sure, sounds great,” he told her, “I’ll meet you at the Starbucks where I nearly choked to death on a cake pop in, say, an hour?”
She laughed and agreed before hanging up.
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“Damn devil things” Jim said while they waited in line to order at starbucks. “They really should put a safety warning on the cake pops.”
“And what would that warning say?” she asked him, a little smile on her face. She loves it when he gets like this.
“Come on Beesly, you and I both know that it would say, ‘warning:cake pops are not a one-bite food. Eat at your own risk.’ God, Pam. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one with a brain around here.” he told her, a smile matching her’s now on his lips.
He was good at this, making her feel better. With Jim by her side she barely noticed the fact that she could no longer order a coffee, so she wound up with an overpriced lemonade. Or the fact that the mom at the table by them was desperately trying to wrangle her unruly toddler. With Jim, everything just felt lighter.
“So, how's your weekend been so far?” he asked while they sipped their drinks.
“Uh...fine,” she said.
“What happened?” he asked, seeing right through her bullshit.
“Roy came to get his stuff this morning,” she said.
His face changed, the sweet smiling falling away, replaced with a look of sheer concern for her.
“Are you okay?”
“I will be.” she told him, even if she wasn't sure herself. She just wanted to stop talking about it, for this time with him to be Roy-free, a break from the emotional hell she had been living in.
“Alright,” he said, “but if you ever need to talk about it, I'm all ears.”
“I know,” she told him with a nod, because she did know. He was the steadiest thing in her life right now, and she would not hesitate to lean on him.
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After finishing their drinks, they wound up wandering through the tightly stocked shelves of the small bookstore across the street. They made fun of dumb titles and remincised about their faviortes. While they were joking about a self help book called “embrace the stallion within”, Pam wound up at a display of books about pregnancy.
She stopped dead in her tracks, her breath hitching in her throat. It really wasn't that big of a deal, and she knew that. But still, never in her life had she given a second thought to buying a copy of “what to expect when you're expecting”, and now it felt like a necessity. She grabbed a copy of it from the display and leafed through it. Truth be told, she knew nothing about pregnancy and birth. Hell, she can't even remember the last time she held a baby, so she definitely needed to do her research. Yet, it almost felt too soon. She was still wrapping her head around the idea of being pregnant, the fact that life was growing inside of her.
“You getting that?” Jim asked from behind her.
She turned around, startled. “What? Oh yeah, maybe” she said.
“You know, if you want, I could ask my mom if she still has her old books about parenting and stuff. She had four kids, so she's bound to have something helpful” he told her.
“That would be amazing, actually” the gesture was not lost on her, especially considering the fact that she was currently desperate for any wisdom.
“Great, I'll call her later,” he said.
After a couple more moments of browsing, Jim left with a copy of “Looking for Alaska”, which he claimed was a gift for his niece, (but Pam still gave him a hard time for it), and she left with “What to Expect When You're Expecting”. She tried to ignore the smile the lady at the checkout counter gave her, she wasn't ready for all the, “how far along are you?” or, “is it a boy or a girl?” fuss yet.
“The beauty of being barely seven weeks along, no one can tell yet” she thought to herself as Jim held the exit door open for her.
He said goodbye to her after she walked him to his car, a promise of seeing her tomorrow and a brief hug being all she had left of him once he drove away.
She didn't really feel like driving home just yet, so she decided to wander around some more. She popped into a furniture store, a boutique, and finally, a baby store. She told herself that she should just get acquainted with what type of stuff was on the market, but she wound up getting lost in racks of baby clothes. Looking through tiny dresses and onesies was a sobering experience. It made it feel more real than even purchasing the book. In nine months she would have a baby in her arms, one small enough to wear the tiny garments she now held in her hands.
Pam took a deep breath and took one of the onesies of the rack. It had the sweetest little print of cherries and lemons all over it, and for a brief moment, she could imagine it on her baby. So she took it up the register, paid for it and brought it home. She thought about putting it in her closet, hiding it away until it was time to put together the baby's nursery, but that felt wrong. So she laid it out on her dresser, a spot where she could see it from her bed. She was going to have a baby, and that onesie was the only thing making it feel okay, like she could do it. The onesie wasn't scary, the onesie she could handle. And if she could handle the thing her baby would wear, maybe she could handle the baby, right?
