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“All right. Good to know. Maybe we can invite you and the girls over for supper soon.”
“You’ll have to do that.”
“Night, Mom,” Pam said, and it twisted Mark’s heart to hear the note of sadness in her voice. He wished that she had a better relationship with her mother, but he didn’t know how to make that happen.
It made him sad.
With his arm around her, they walked to the door, he opened it, and they stepped out. He was tempted to stay outside. There was so much rolling around in his mind, so many changes, and so many things he wished he could fix and couldn’t. Then there was the matter of them going to the bedroom together. That could be awkward with Paulette upstairs as well.
But he didn’t stay out; he opened the door to his side of the duplex and allowed Pam to walk through first.
Whatever happened, they’d get through it together. They always had. That was one thing about Pam and him, they were so comfortable together that things just kind of naturally worked out. He was hoping that this was going to be the same as everything else.
They went to the kitchen, got a drink, and washed their hands, then, still without saying anything, they walked up the stairs.
She knew where his room was. There were different times over the years where he’d been sick in bed, not too many, but about five years ago, he’d had the flu really bad.
She brought him chicken broth and eventually rice soup, and she helped him go to the doctor.
Other than that, she hadn’t been upstairs in his house much, but at least she knew where he slept.
Indeed, she went straight to his room, with him following. From the light coming underneath the bathroom door, he assumed that was where Paulette was.
They walked in, and he closed the door behind her, turning on the light.
“I don’t have any clothes,” Pam said right away, turning around to face him, concern puckering her brow.
“Mine will be too big, but I have plenty. They’ll work for tonight, won’t they?”
“Yeah. I guess I should’ve thought about it. I mean, I told them that I didn’t have time to move my room, so it wouldn’t have been strange if I would’ve gone up to get clothes. I just...didn’t want to. Didn’t want to bring that kind of questioning into anything. After all, I should have something over here.”
“Not necessarily,” he said, grinning and hoping that his joke wasn’t too off-color for her.
She looked at him in confusion for a moment before she chuckled a little. “Okay. I suppose that’s right, but it’s a little awkward.”
“It’s not that awkward. Just don’t think about it like that.”
“It’s hard to think about that any way other than naked,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her chest and walking to his dresser. “Where are your T-shirts?”
“Second drawer down. Underwear’s first drawer, although if you borrow my underwear, I might need you to actually show me that.”
“All right. No underwear.” She opened the second drawer and rummaged through, pulling out his blue Yellowstone State Park T-shirt that she always said was her favorite. He teased her it was because of the bear on the front, but she always insisted it was because of the color.
Regardless, he smiled when he saw that she went to it immediately. “What if that one hadn’t been clean?”
“I’d root through your dirty clothes until I found it, of course. This is the only T-shirt you have worth wearing.”
“I have a green one you like.”
“Oh. That’s right. It’s the one you brought back from Ireland.”
“Yeah. I have two nice T-shirts, and now you’re stealing one and we’ve only been married a day. This is ridiculous.”
She laughed, as he hoped she would, and the anxiety and tension that had been in the air dissipated.
“Pants are four drawers down. I have some sweatpants in there that will drag on you, but they’ll work.”
“Awesome. Although, I might have to use underwear. I’m not sure I can stomach the idea of not.”
