She’s 37 when she dies.

It’s nothing impressive like saving a child from drowning or nothing particularly tragic like dying waiting for a heart transplant.

She’s just 37 crossing the street when a car runs a red light and she gets hit.

It’s sudden and she’s too young to die, but her last thoughts are that this is Ok.

Because she’s seen the Eiffel tower, she’s painted a few great paintings, she’s lived- really, really lived.

She’s loved her Mother and relished her childhood; she’s had great friends who’ll remember her when she’s gone; she’s slept with some amazing men and been absolutely, truly in love.

Her only regret in the last few moments of her life is that she didn’t get her happily ever after with him after all.

She never ran into him even when they lived in the same city; she guesses that he was happy after all with his beautiful wife. She never did call him. He never did call her. She guesses he was content to live out their lives separately and who was she to try to change his mind.

But now as her eyes close and there are voices in the distance she wonders if maybe everything would have been different if Jim had chosen her instead of Karen. If she hadn’t told Roy. If he hadn’t hated her. If somehow they had found a way to be together. She wonders if he’ll come to her funeral. She wonders if he’ll ever see her artwork.

She wonders what happens next.

When Jim hears the news he isn’t sitting down and it isn’t delivered gently. He guesses that Michael thinks that a decade later he should be over Pam. So when Michael tells him that the only woman he ever really loved is dead he’s on his way to work with a cup of coffee in his hand and his phone tucked between his head and his shoulder.

When Karen finds him later that day he’s still wearing his work clothes and the coffee is still sitting on the table where he left it. Except he’s lying next to the sofa and a bottle of Jack Daniels is sitting half empty next to him. She sees the note he’s scribbled with an address in Carbondale, time, date and phone number.

She calls the number.

That’s how she hears the news.

She feels like it’s hypocritical to cry because isn’t this her fondest wish come true all at once, for Pam to finally be gone? But she never meant like this, she never wanted this. When she gets up to cover her husband with a blanket she’s struck by how young he looks, sleeping soundly. She watches him for a few moments and when he starts to cry in his sleep she isn’t sure what to do. She calls out his name softly and she’s sure he calls out the name “Pam” in a strangled plea. And Karen knows this isn’t what she wanted. Not once. Not ever.

When Karen wakes up, he’s gone.

His ring is there on the coffee table; he’s taken his wallet and nothing else.

Normally, this would be reassuring; the idea that he is coming back, probably tonight. But she can’t shake the feeling that maybe he doesn’t need clothes for where he’s going.

At the funeral he doesn’t try to hold back the tears, he doesn’t talk to anyone, he doesn’t let anyone hug him or say hello. He just stands and sobs until he has nothing left. He’s still there when everyone has left, still there when it starts to drizzle. The headstone is simple, with her name and her dates of birth and death and the inscription “Oh, how she was loved.”

He thinks no truer words have ever been written.

He doesn’t blame fate or her or him anymore. He just blames himself. He blames himself for blaming her after Roy hit him. He blames himself for being proud enough to not forgive her even when she begged (a memory he will never be able to relive). He blames himself for ruining Karen’s life by marrying her. He blames himself for never calling her, for never going back. For never moving forward.

He blames himself for what he’s about to do.

He doesn’t want anything messy or awful. Since his parents passed away he doesn’t feel compelled to stick around for them. So going isn’t a problem. As for Karen- this is the kindest thing he can do for her.

Jumping scares him, drowning doesn’t seem fool proof. A gun too messy. Hanging too morbid.

So in the end he just takes the whole bottle of anti-depressants the doctor gave Karen earlier this year and drinks as much as he can without passing out or throwing up.

In the end it’s easy and clean and final.

He doesn’t think about what wasn’t like Pam did. All he thinks about is how this is the only answer, how maybe happiness isn’t for everyone. Especially when the woman you love dies when she is 37.