April 3, 2007

Pam was an emotional wreck for the week following her art show at the gallery. As Jim had promised, he showed up both Friday and Saturday night and stayed near her the entire time for the entire night. She thanked him for coming and she was happy that he had been there, but she couldn’t bring herself to forgive him for not coming to the opening night – she didn’t even know why.

He continuously called her for the next week, through the weekend, usually when he called she was sleeping or she was just too irritable to think about talking to him. She was miserable. She didn’t want to drag Jim down into her bitter feelings and she simply didn’t want to talk with him.

**

She awoke early, early in the morning on the third. It felt like her entire midsection was being stabbed with knives. She looked at her clock, it was only six thirty and she didn’t have to be up for another couple of hours. She tried to curl back in bed, but the pain would not go away. She sleepily crawled out of bed and as soon as she stood up, she just wanted to crawl back under the sheets. She yawned and looked down towards the floor. She was immediately shocked awake when she saw blood on her upper legs and a little at the hem of the t-shirt that she had worn to bed.

When she went to the bathroom, she felt her heart sink and the pain stabbed at her stomach. She suddenly realized why she had been so tired lately and she suddenly knew why she was so stubborn to forgive Jim and why she had been so irritable around him in the past week and a half. She cleaned herself up the best that she could in her sleepy state of mind and walked back out into the main room of her apartment.

She threw on some jeans and a clean shirt and picked up her cell phone. She thought about calling Jim but at the last minute as she threw on her coat, she decided not to. She didn’t want to bother him with this until she knew for certain.

She quietly left her apartment and rushed out onto the street and hailed the first taxi that she could.

“Where to, miss?” the cabbie asked when she slipped into the backseat.

“Just take me to the nearest hospital,” she replied quietly.

**

“Mr. Halpert, I have a call for you on line two,” the receptionist said dully, paging Jim in his office.

“Can it wait?” he asked.

“I don’t think so…” she replied a bit apprehensively. “It’s the hospital.” He immediately picked up the phone and pressed ‘Line 2’.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Jim Halpert?”

“Yes,” he replied, his heart racing, he didn’t know which hospital was calling or who the call was concerning, but any call from any hospital was enough to get him feeling nervous.

“We have a friend of yours here right now, she said that we should call you,” the dull voice on the other end of the line explained.

“Who is it?” Jim asked before the voice could finish.

“Pam Beesly.”

“What hospital?” he asked quickly, jumping upright and grabbing his keys. He waited for the response. “Okay, don’t let her leave,” he interrupted the person on the other end of the line before they even finished speaking, “I’ll be there right away.”

**

He rushed into the waiting room that they had directed him to. He quickly rushed to the front desk.

“Hi, I’m looking for Pam Beesly,” he said quickly to the receptionist.

“Jim?” he heard a meek voice ask from close by.

“Pam?” he looked over towards where the voice came from and he saw her curled up into herself sitting on two chairs in the corner. Her back was against the wall and her knees were pulled tight into her chest. “Pam…” he rushed over to her and knelt on the floor next to her. Her face was red and covered in tears.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered against her knees as his hand ran along her arm.

“Pam, are you okay?” he asked in the most comforting voice he could muster, his fingers trailing in the ends of her hair that fell around her shoulders.

There was a small cough above the two of them, and they both looked up at the same time. A doctor in blue scrubs and a white overcoat was standing next to where Jim knelt and Jim quickly stood to his feet.

“Are you…Jim?” the doctor asked. He didn’t quite look at Jim though; he looked over at Pam instead who nodded meekly.

“Yes,” Jim replied, reaching out his hand for the doctor’s.

“Well, you can take her home if you’d like,” the doctor said in a soothing voice. “She needs lots of rest and she’s probably going to be in a little bit of pain for the next couple of days. The worst of the bleeding is over and you should probably…”

“Wait, let me interrupt you,” Jim said quickly. He looked down at Pam, who refused to make eye contact with the two men standing in front of her.

“What?”

“What happened?”

“The nurse or receptionist didn’t tell you?”

“No…” Jim replied, realizing that he probably didn’t even give either of them a chance to tell him what had happened the way that he had spoken with the hospital staff on the phone before he arrived.

“Pam had a miscarriage,” he said. Jim immediately heard a weak and muffled cry escape from Pam’s throat and he felt his entire body seize up.

“What?” Jim gasped.

“Pam had a miscarriage,” the doctor repeated smoothly. “Anyway, just take her home, have her get some rest. She might be a little emotional for a while. However, she should be fine and completely back to normal within a week or so.” Jim nodded dumbly and looked back down at Pam, whose head was buried in her knees again.

“Thanks,” Jim said with a nod. The doctor nodded back and walked away. Jim took a deep breath and sat next to Pam’s feet. “So…”

“I’m sorry Jim,” she whispered, her knees shaking.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked. She nodded weakly. “My place or yours?”

“Yours,” she said softly, unable to come face to face just yet with her blood-stained sheets.

**

Her entire body ached as she walked up the stairs. She had fallen asleep on Jim’s shoulder in the taxi to his apartment, which she welcomed because it meant that she didn’t have to speak to him with another person present. He helped her through the door and once inside; she immediately dragged herself over to his couch and curled up in a corner.

“So are we going to talk about this?” he asked as he sat down near her. She wanted to sleep, but instead she just found herself crying again. “I’m not upset…I just…” he sighed heavily. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?”

“I didn’t know,” she said quietly. “I mean…I’ve been so stressed with school and the art show and work, that the first month I missed I just chalked it up to stress.” She took a deep breath, uncurled a little and wiped a couple of tears from her eyes. “Do you have any Kleenex?”

“Yeah, hang on,” he said as he quickly stood up and walked to the bathroom, emerging with a full box of Kleenex which she graciously pulled into her arms as if it was a teddy bear.

“And then I realized this morning when I woke up bleeding everywhere that it had been at least two and half months since…well, yeah…and that’s when I knew,” she said as she dabbed the tissue at the corner of her eyes. Jim nodded. “I’m sorry that you had to find out the way that you did, I’m sorry I had to find out the way that I did…” she sniffled. “I thought about calling you when I took myself to the hospital.”

“Why did you even go to the hospital?” he asked.

“My mom had a couple miscarriages back before she had me,” she replied, “she always told me that if I was ever in that situation and if I thought that I might be more than a month or two along that I should go to the doctor right away because that’s the best way to take care of it.” She sat up straight and immediately fell the other way, crashing against Jim’s chest and she sobbed quietly. “I’m so, so sorry, Jim.”

“It’s okay,” he said as his arms instinctually wrapped tightly around her body and his fingers twined themselves in her hair.

“It’s just…I should have known,” she said quietly against the cotton of his shirt, “I was eating more and I was always so damn tired, I was irritable…I was so horrible to you…”

“No…”

“Yes I was,” she insisted. “I was really awful and I…” she took a deep shuddering breath, “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t know what to say in response, he just held her tightly in his arms and gently rocked her back and forth a little while she softly cried.

“Do you…do you need anything?” he finally asked quietly once her tears and weak cries began to taper off.

“I just kind of want to sleep,” she replied.

“Are you supposed to work today?” he asked.

“Fuck,” she whispered, and the tears started to come again. “I can’t work…not today.”

“Shh…no, it’s okay,” he said as he ran a hand over the back of her hair. “I’ll call Dwight. I’ll get you today and tomorrow off, okay?”

“Thanks,” she mumbled against his shirt.

“Do you need any food? Anything to drink?” he pulled himself away from her and looked in her eyes. She bit her bottom lip and shook her head slowly.

“I just want to sleep,” she said softly. She seemed to be searching his face and she looked back down and examined his clothing. “You should probably go back to work.”

“I’ll stay here with you,” he said quietly. “I can call back and say that I need a personal day.”

“No,” she said a little more firmly than before, “no, go back to work.”

“You sure?” he asked. “Because I will stay here.”

“No…I mean, yes, I’m sure,” she said, “I’ll probably sleep all day anyway.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he nodded slowly. “Do you want me to pick you up anything when I come home?” She thought for a couple of minutes.

“Can you take my keys?” she asked. “I…well…no, maybe you shouldn’t…”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I just…it’s my bed,” she replied quietly. “Um…I bled…there’s a lot of blood…” her eyes moved quickly back and forth as she looked down in her lap. “The sheets are probably ruined…and…I, well…”

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “Do you want anything else from your apartment?”

“Can you maybe grab a couple changes of clothes and maybe my black sketchbook and the blue tin of charcoals?” she asked.

“Clothes, black sketchbook and blue charcoals,” he said with a nod.

“That’s…I think that’s all,” she said quietly. He nodded again and stood up.

“If you need anything else, you can give me a call on my cell phone or at my office,” he said. “I will be back here in second if anything happens.” Pam smiled weakly and nodded, feeling tears flooding back into her eyes again. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to go grab you a pillow and some blankets.”

She could hear him quickly run up the stairs and she slowly slid the length of her body down on his couch, curling her knees towards her chest and she closed her eyes. Her stomach didn’t hurt as bad as it had when she had woken up that morning, but there was still a dull ache that stabbed away at her abdomen. Her head was fuzzy and every single negative emotion that she could possibly feel was eating away at her subconscious.

She smiled when she felt a heavy blanket draped over her and she opened her eyes as he tucked the blanket in against her.

“Lift your head,” he said as he pulled a pillow from the floor. She lifted her head up off of the couch and he tucked it in underneath her.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“Now remember,” he said. “If you need anything, call me.” He knelt down on the floor and kissed her temple softly.

“Okay.” He ran his hand through her hair, brushing some of her curls off of her face.

“Pam?”

“Mm?” she closed her eyes slowly as he quickly brought his lips tentatively against hers.

“I love you,” he said and she smiled, “I’ll be back between five and six tonight.”

**

“So…Jim,” Michael and Ryan were standing in his doorway the second that he returned to work and sat down in his desk chair.

“Hey guys, I’m really…”

“So where have you been?” Michael asked. “Care to explain why you missed our eleven o’clock meeting this morning?”

“Michael…”

“We’re lucky it wasn’t any more important or we would have been fucked,” Ryan chided.

“Guys…”

“Where were you?” Michael asked with an expectant look on his face.

“I had to go get Pam,” he replied quietly. “She was in the hospital.” Ryan immediately slunk away and Michael stood dumbstruck in the doorway.

“What happened?” Michael gasped.

“She…” Jim stumbled for the words, “it’s not important.”

“Is she okay?” Michael asked.

“She’s fine, she’s fine,” Jim replied, “she’s at my place right now.”

“Well why aren’t you with her?”

“She told me to go back to work,” Jim explained. “She said she’d probably sleep the rest of the day.”

“So she’s okay,” Michael assured to himself.

“She’s fine,” Jim said with a nod.

“What happened?” Michael asked. Jim sighed and looked away towards his computer where there was a full inbox of unread e-mails to get to. Michael stepped inside of the office and closed the door softly behind him.

“Michael, I think that’s something that’s between me and her,” he said with a nod.

“Is it serious?” Michael asked.

“No, it’s fine. She’s fine,” Jim stated again.

“Did she do something to herself? Is she sick?”

“Why can’t you just leave it alone?” Jim asked, though he knew perfectly well that by nature, Michael Scott was an extremely curious man and would not let the subject matter go easily.

“Sorry, I just…she’s such a nice girl,” Michael said. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”

“Yeah, neither do I,” Jim said with a sad sigh.

“So why was she at the hospital?” Michael persisted. Jim paused for a long moment, wondering if Pam would really want him to tell Michael what had happened to her – to them, really. In a way it was their news…

“She might have been…pregnant. And she might not be anymore,” Jim said quietly. As soon as he said the words, Michael’s mouth dropped open.

“Pam is pregnant?” Michael asked in a gasp. “Is it yours?”

“She had a miscarriage, Michael,” Jim replied, feeling a rather inexplicable rush of sadness course through him as he said the words. “And of course it was mine.”

“Oh Jim, I’m so sorry,” Michael said.

“Yeah…” he nodded and sighed again.

“Hey listen, if you want to take off early today, you can,” he said quickly. “I don’t want to keep you from her or anything.”

“Thanks,” Jim said, “I’ll think about it.”

**

Jim left work at three o’clock, taking advantage of Michael’s offer for him to leave work early. It wasn’t very often that he was given the opportunity – and he actually couldn’t remember the last time that he was offered to take a couple of hours off work. The circumstances that he was allowed the early leave may not be ideal, but at least this way, he could get to Pam’s apartment for what she needed, stop by the grocery store and get back home before too late in the evening.

He went to Pam’s apartment first, fumbling with a couple of the locks on doors to get to her apartment. When he finally made it into her small living space, he could immediately see why she might not want to come back. He quickly gathered up the black sketchbook and her blue box of charcoals from a bookshelf across from her bed. He then went through a couple drawers of clothing and pulled out a couple items of clothing that he saw her in quite frequently. A pair of cotton pants, a pair of well worn jeans, a couple of soft t-shirts and he blindly pulled out a couple pairs of underwear from her underwear drawer.

He found it a little difficult to look at her bed. She hadn’t been lying when she fumbled over her words earlier in the day. She had certainly bled. He stripped her comforter off of her bed and then quickly stripped off the sheets. Normally, he would have tried to get the stains out, but this was something that he didn’t want her to be reminded of, so he quickly found a trash bag and threw the sheet in there. If she wanted, he would buy her a new set. He quickly packed everything that she wanted into a bag and left the apartment as quickly as he had arrived – he was anxious to get back to his place and see her again.

When he stepped outside, he almost crossed the street but realized that there was an open flower shop on the corner. He quickly backtracked and stepped inside to the aromatic little shop. There were bouquets of early spring flowers everywhere. There were some exotic plants and there were some beautiful potted flowers. He walked over to a large display of tulips and daffodils and picked up a bouquet of light pink and white tulips. He didn’t know what kind of flowers that Pam liked, but the tulips were pretty and he thought they smelled wonderful so he bought them. If his past with women taught him anything, it was that no woman could resist a bouquet of flowers when they were feeling sad.

**

He arrived at home feeling like he was maybe carrying one too many things. His leather messenger bag was slung over his shoulder, bouncing against his back and filled with some of Pam’s things. In his right hand he had the bouquet of tulips, a grocery bag and in his other hand he had two more bags of groceries. He looked around the room, hoping that maybe Pam would be awake and she would be active, but when he looked over towards to the living room, he only saw her arm, slung over the arm of the couch.

He put down everything except for the tulips and walked over to where she slept and sat on the coffee table.

“Pam,” he whispered, leaning over and tucking a few strands of hair behind her ear. The back of his hand softly caressed her cheek until her eyes fluttered open. She yawned and stretched her legs to the other end of the couch and smiled a little.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“My tummy’s sore,” she replied as she pulled herself up a little bit.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Here.” He pulled the tulips up from his feet and handed them to her. A big heartfelt smile crossed her face and she gingerly took the flowers and inhaled their scent.

“You got me tulips,” she said quietly as tears started to form in her eyes again.

“Yeah, something told me that when the girl that you love is not feeling so great that you should get her flowers,” he said with a smile. “Unfortunately, I had to go with my gut with the tulips because I have no idea what kind of flowers you like.”

“The tulips are wonderful,” she said quietly, almost whispering. “You’re wonderful.”

“So are you hungry?” he asked. “Have you eaten anything today?”

“Yes and no,” she replied.

“What do you want to eat?” he asked.

“Anything,” she replied. “Something…”

“Comforting?”

“Yeah,” she said with a small nod.

“Okay, you stay here,” he said rubbing her shoulder softly as he stood. “I’ll make us some dinner.”

“Okay,” she said as she slumped back down into the couch.

“Have you been sleeping all day?” he asked from the kitchen as he started to rummage through the refrigerator. Pam poked her head up over the edge of the sofa and started to watch him.

“Pretty much,” she replied. “I got up a couple of times for a drink of water or to use the bathroom, but that’s it.” She watched him as he worked quickly in the kitchen. “What are you making?”

“Why?”

“I’m just curious,” she said.

“You’ll see,” he said with a wink.

He quickly finished putting together their dinner. He got out two blue plates and two large glasses. Each plate was given one grilled cheese sandwich and each glass was filled with chocolate milk. He carefully balanced the four items in his hands and brought them to where Pam was sitting – fully awake now.

“What’s this?” she asked with a grin.

“Well, whenever I was feeling out of it as a kid, my mom made me grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate milk,” he said as he handed her the larger of the two sandwiches.

“Thank you,” she said. The two of them ate in silence for a couple of minutes until Jim spoke up.

“So how does it feel?” he asked quietly.

“How does what feel?” she asked as she nibbled off a corner of her sandwich.

“The whole…all of this,” he replied quietly, trying not to tread on dangerous ground. She shrugged.

“I think it happened before…a long, long time ago, like four or five years ago maybe,” she said. “It wasn’t as bad as this though. If it did happen, I hadn’t even been…you know…for a month. I didn’t have to go to the hospital or anything, it just came and went.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah…” she said with a sigh as she set down her sandwich. “I mean, it hurts. Physically and emotionally.”

“Do you think you would have wanted it?” he asked softly after taking a sip of chocolate milk.

“A baby?” she asked, Jim nodded. “I don’t know…would you?” He shrugged this time and she sighed heavily. “It would have been a bit sooner than I would have liked. I always figured that I would wait until I was thirty to have children.”

“Yeah…”

“I would have kept it though,” she said quickly. “I think I’d probably be a decent mother. I’m sure that you’d be a wonderful father if you…um…if you wanted to be, of course.”

“Yeah,” he said with a thoughtful nod. “So…you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I will be at least, in a day or two,” she said and paused. “Are…are you going to be okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said quickly. “Yeah…” She nodded slowly and the two of them sat in an awkward silence for a little longer.

“It’s not like I won’t be able to have children again either,” she said quickly, breaking the silence. “Some people miscarry really badly and it hinders them in the future…” she stopped herself. Jim just nodded because he honestly didn’t know if she was going to be ready to go into a conversation about future children just yet.

“I’m just…I’m glad that you’re okay,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said with a small smile.

“I got that call from the hospital this morning and I thought that you had died or something, I don’t even know,” he said. “I hadn’t been that concerned about someone in a real long time.”

“You were there a lot faster than I thought you would be,” she said.

“What can I say? I’m a worrier for the people that I love,” he said as he polished off his sandwich and when he looked over at her, he noticed that her smile was a little brighter.

“Thank you,” she said softly. He turned towards her and smiled.

“You’re welcome.”