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Once in a blue moon, the stars align and Pam and Karen have 24 hours alone, together.
Karen cares less about someone accidentally overhearing something, but Pam is convinced that the kids are scarred enough as it is, being the product of divorced home, blended families. Holidays are a disaster at the best of times -- four cars making circles around New England, trading children and presents, trying to appease five sets of grandparents.
Those moments, when they collapse together and breathe, those are the moments when Pam is happiest. But a very, very close second are the moments when it's just Pam and Karen, collapsed together in bed, in an eerily quiet house with nothing on the schedule. Karen somehow manages to sleep in. Pam starts twitching at half past eight. "Mmn, don't move. We're not leaving this bed until noon."
"But what if I have to pee?"
"As long as you pee and come back instead of making the kids' beds. I'll know. I have a sense."
Karen is wrapped in a duvet burrito, but pokes her face free for a kiss. Pam is awkwardly modest, even in an empty house. There is a robe for this express purpose, and she wraps it around her body tightly. She is rounding with age, softening. Karen, for the most part, stays hard and taught. She works out during her lunch hour. While Pam has the kids running around and her art, it isn't the same as deliberate use of a rowing machine. She squishes her belly fondly in the mirror before taking a seat on the toilet.
"I can hear you plotting to wash those dishes," Karen calls out, sleepily.
**
When Cece gets old enough to start caring about these things, they still don't tell her exactly how they got together. She loves her Dad, and the tangled bits of their shared past would only confuse a girl who desperately wants to believe in love. Karen doesn't think the story is believable, anyway.
"It's not believable, anyway," she says, putting the car into reverse. The kids are crammed in the back, each plugged into their own set of headphones.
"What do you mean? It happened!"
"Occam's razor, Pam. The simplest solution is probably the right one. I don't think Science would peg us for a couple."
"I don't know about that. Seems simple enough to me."
"Stubborn."
"Simple."
"The opposite of."