January 25, 2010

“Jim, call me back as soon as you get this. I know you’re probably on the plane right now. Anyway, my mom says that it looks like the baby is going to come really soon…I probably should have noticed that a while ago, but it didn’t really even occur to me until she mentioned it. In any case, I know you have a meeting to go to as soon as you land but…well…I guess if anything else happens, I’ll call the emergency phone.”

“I know, I know, I’m still not using the emergency phone, but this isn’t that urgent…at least I don’t think so…anyway, it’s probably a really good idea that you call me back as soon as you get this message anyway.”

He had lost his regular cell phone sometime between the time that he arrived in Sydney and the point in time that he had arrived at his first business meeting. He never received Pam’s messages.

***

The emergency cell phone rang on his nightstand. It didn’t register at first. He wondered why anyone would be calling him in the middle of the night. Then he realized that this was not his usual cell phone ring and that he hadn’t heard that usual cell phone ring in a couple of days. His eyes darted open and he looked at the clock on the nightstand: 2:45 AM.

The thought of how long the phone had been ringing instantaneously shot through his mind and he lurched over the side of the bed to pick it up before the ringing stopped.

“Hello?” he asked in a sleepy sort of panic. “Pam! Are you okay? Is the baby okay?”

“This is Pam’s mother.” she replied. “Pam’s fine, the baby is fine but…Jim, you need to come home now.”

“What’s wrong? What’s going on?” he asked frantically sitting straight in bed and pounding the palm of his hand against the wall where the flip for the light was. He knew this trip had been a bad idea – a horrible idea.

“Nothing is wrong,” she reassured, “it’s just…well, it would appear that Pam may be going into labor.”

The room seemed to freeze around him and for a brief second he wondered if his heart was still beating.

“What?” he asked hoarsely.

“I’m just gathering up the last couple of things that she forgot to pack and then we’re off to the hospital.” she said.

“Now?” he asked, his mind reeling. “But you’re not sure…”

“Jim, I’m as sure as a mother can be about these things.” she replied in a kind tone. “We are going to the hospital. You should get on the very next flight back to the city.”

“I’m…” he was breathing heavily and he immediately leapt out of bed, tearing around his hotel room trying to gather everything together as he held the phone against her ear.

“I think that you’ll be here in time if you can make a flight within the next couple of hours.” her mother said. Jim listened to her carefully – she sounded too calm for the situation that was taking place. “A baby doesn’t just come in a couple of hours. Her water hasn’t even broken yet…and…”

Jim heard Pam’s voice echo through the other end of the phone. He couldn’t quite make out what she had said, but it had sounded a little more urgent than she usually came across.

“You’re sure she’s okay?” Jim asked, all while trying to calculate exactly how long it would take for him to get back to New York City if everything worked perfectly and he was able to immediately catch a flight to JFK. It would be at least fifteen hours, for certain.

“Yes, she’s fine.” her mother replied. “We’re leaving now, she just hailed a cab and I’ll try and call you again at some point from the hospital.”

“Okay, I’m finding the first flight out of Sydney.” he said as he stuffed a couple pairs of socks into his suitcase and rushed to pick up the rest of his money and passport from the top of the dresser.

“See you soon.” she said before she hung up the phone.

He was going to get fired – he knew he was going to get fired. If he didn’t get fired, he would at least get an extreme demotion. He grabbed the key to his room and quickly glanced around one last time to make certain he hadn’t forgotten anything. He felt like he was having a panic attack.

He didn’t know how he could have done it; he didn’t know why he had come in the first place. He should have known this was going to happen before he even left. Every time that he left something didn’t go quite as planned. Granted, usually the events that unfolded were a lot less major than Pam going into labor while he was on the other side of the world.

The moments where he rushed down to the lobby, asked for a cab to the airport and asked for the numbers to every single airline imaginable were a complete blur. He didn’t know how he was going to handle fifteen to twenty hours in planes and airport terminals thinking about whether or not he was going to make it in time to witness the birth of his first child.

***

Pam’s mother called Jim sometime between Sydney and San Francisco. Jim felt odd checking the messages on his phone in San Francisco – especially when they involved Pam and their baby. Bad memories came flooding back to him as he listened to the one message that Pam’s mother had left him during his flight over the Pacific Ocean. He was prepared to hear the worst as he listened to the voicemail but instead her mother told him that Pam and the baby were fine, she had not yet given birth and she would call him again as soon as she could with another update.

Before boarding his flight to JFK, he quickly dialed the phone number that Pam’s mother had called him from. He cursed himself for not programming contacts into the phone before he left. He wasn’t sure if it was Pam’s phone or her mother’s phone – at this point, he couldn’t really comprehend anything. His mind was on a one-way track that kept repeating, “Pam and the baby” over and over again.

He didn’t get a response when he called and it went to Pam’s voicemail. His heart leapt into his throat when he heard Pam’s recorded voice on the other line and he simply left a quick message saying that he was in San Francisco and he would be leaving for JFK in a half hour.

***

When he was finally able to check his messages again in the airport terminal at JFK, he was shocked that he hadn’t received any word from Pam’s mother or anyone else about the status of Pam and the baby. He called Pam’s phone number, the only phone number that he knew off the top of his head – no answer.

He didn’t know why Pam or her mother hadn’t bothered to call the emergency phone again. If she had given birth would that really be considered an emergency? They already knew that he was on his way.

Jim jumped into the first free cab he saw outside of the airport terminal.
“Go as fast as you can.” he told the driver after he told the man the name of the hospital birthing center that he and Pam had decided on.

“You a lucky man?” the driver asked in a thick accent that Jim couldn’t quite place.

“Yes…” Jim replied with uncertainty in his voice.

“You gonna be a proud father, eh?” the driver asked with a large smile.

“Yes.” Jim replied, a bit more certain about the answer to that question. Yes, he knew that he was going to be lucky – he would have (or already had) a child…his first child.

***

He knew it when he gave Pam’s name to the woman sitting at the front desk. He felt the realization stabbing him like a dagger. He had missed it.

The reality hit him even harder when he walked onto the elevator and he pressed the button for the fourth floor. He and Pam had been in here before and he knew that the fourth floor was all private rooms – not birthing rooms. His heart was heavy and he could feel his face hot with anger, frustration and disappointment. He looked up briefly as the elevator stopped on the second floor and a nurse stepped into the small space with him. He noticed a sign above the buttons that read, “No Cell Phones” and for the first time he realized why it hadn’t been Pam calling him, and why he had only received the brief couple of phone calls from her mother.

When he stepped off the elevator he could already feel the tears hot in his eyes. He pressed his palms against his eyes as the doors opened – hoping the nurse hadn’t noticed.

“Congratulations.” the nurse said quietly as he stepped through the open doors.

“Thanks.” he mumbled as he turned left in the direction of the number that he had been given at the front desk down on the first floor.

He walked down the hall of closed doors. He wondered why he didn’t feel happier. He had a child waiting for him at the end of this hallway, after all. He had his wife waiting for him at the end of this hallway. He had a whole new life waiting for him behind door 482.

He knocked softly on the blue door. He thought for sure that he would get a response but it was silent. He sniffled loudly and wiped the tears from his cheeks that had formed from his walk to this spot.

“Pam?” he croaked against the door. Still no response.

He took a deep breath and turned the handle of the door and stepped inside. It was a sunny, private room with dusty pink walls, what appeared to be a dresser to the side of the door, a small sofa and armchair near the window and a decent-sized bed off to the side.

And there was Pam – sleeping, her face turned towards the sunny window.

“Pam.” he said again, the tears ever-present in his eyes and before he even knew what he was doing, he had discarded his suitcase next to the door and rushed to the side of her bed, fallen onto his knees and threw his arms across her significantly smaller stomach.

“I missed it.” he whispered to himself, shaking his head back and forth, trying to wipe his tears away on the light yellow blanket that covered her as she slept. “I’m so sorry, I’m so, so, so sorry, Pam. I wanted to be here, I tried so hard to get here in time, I really did. I got the first flight that I could and why did I have to go…” All of his words were muffled by the blanket, but Pam seemed to hear.

She stirred without Jim realizing and he jumped when he felt her hand tangled in his hair.

“Hey.” she whispered sleepily. He looked up at her, his eyes red from the lack of sleep that he had gotten and all of the tears that he had shed on his long flight from Sydney.

“I missed it all.” he said woefully. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“I thought that I would have heard from you by now.” she said quietly. “My mom called you like, three times.”

“Where is your mom?” he asked, noticing her mother’s absence.

“She went home to get a few things for me.” she replied. “She should be back soon.”

“I’m so sorry.” he said again. “I lost my cell phone somewhere in Sydney…she didn’t call the emergency phone. That’s the one I had.”

Pam nodded, “It’s okay. I think that she accidentally lost the emergency number sometime during the birth, or maybe right before…that’s one of the things she went back home to find.” She noticed the tears on Jim’s cheeks, smiled weakly and repeated, “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” he said shaking his head. “I missed…” and then it suddenly hit him. There was a baby.

She smiled as if she could read his thoughts and nodded her head towards the other side of the bed.

“It’s…” he started to rise to his feet. In his rush to get to Pam’s side and apologize to her, he had completely missed the small bassinet sitting next to the bed that Pam was lying on.

He stood and walked around to the opposite side of the bed and saw the little bundle of white wrapped in the bassinet next to Pam.

“I haven’t named her yet.” Pam said quietly as Jim bent over the sleeping baby and carefully examined every feature.

His mind registered what she had just said, “Her?”

Pam nodded, grinning, “She’s a girl.”

He felt his heart and every emotion inside of his catch in his throat. A huge swell of pride swept over him and he tentatively touched the baby’s cheek with his finger.

“You can pick her up if you’d like.” Pam said, unable to hold back her grin or her tears of happiness.

“I can?” he asked and Pam giggled softly.

“She’s your daughter too.” she replied. Jim nodded and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and gingerly lifted the small white bundle into his arms and cradled her there.

“You sure you don’t want her name to be Pam?” he teased. “She looks just like you.”

“That’s what my mom said when she saw her.” she said as she moved aside to make room for Jim to sit on the bed with her. He lowered himself next to her and she leaned into his chest and pushed some of the blanket wrapped around the tiny body aside so she and Jim could get a better look.

His emotions all caught in his throat again as the tiny little girl opened her eyes just slightly. She was the most beautiful newborn baby that he had seen and it suddenly really hit him that she was his. Her features almost exclusively mimicked Pam’s. She had Pam’s face, her nose and chin matched her mother’s perfectly. The baby’s hair – though she didn’t have more than a couple of small curls – was even similar to Pam’s. However, when the girl caught Jim’s gaze, he could clearly see the baby had his eyes.

“What do you want to name her?” he asked.

“I have an idea.” she replied. “It kind of popped into my head the moment I saw her.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “Because the name I have in mind is just awful considering the circumstances.”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Sydney.” he replied. She giggled softly.

“Do you really want to name her that?” she asked.

“No.” he replied. “I’d like to forget about the position I found myself in if at all possible.”

“Ah, but if she asks when she’s older where her father was…” Pam teased.

“Don’t.” he said shaking his head. “I already feel horrible as it is.”

“You made amazing time.” she said looking at the clock across the room.

“I also did just about everything short of getting down on my hands and knees and begging…wait…no, I did that.” he said with a smile before he turned his gaze back towards his tiny daughter sleeping in his arms.

“I really thought it would be longer.” Pam said quietly her hand meeting Jim’s underneath the baby’s back. “I can’t believe that she came as fast as she did. It was no more than five hours after I had been having steady contractions that the doctors told me I was ready. I was…shocked. I thought for sure it was going to be at least a day. I actually waited a couple of hours longer after they told me I was ready…even so. I knew that you didn’t have a chance of getting back in time. I tried telling everyone that I wanted to wait until you arrived but…you can’t exactly stop a baby from being born.”

“So she was ready.” he said.

“She was definitely ready.” she said. “I’ll never trust due dates again.”

“So when exactly was she born?” Jim asked.

“This morning at 1:45.” Pam replied. “Eight pounds, two ounces and twenty one inches long.”

He looked down at the baby again and smiled, “Wow…You kept your mother up quite late, didn’t you? What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?” The baby opened her mouth wide in a yawn. Pam giggled and rest her head against Jim’s shoulder.

“It’s okay.” she said, “she was worth it.”

“So what is her name going to be?” he asked. “Sydney is not going to work…”

“Amelia.” Pam said.

“Amelia.” Jim repeated, letting the name linger in the air. He looked down at the tiny girl in his arms. Her eyes fluttered open again and she yawned again before letting out a small mewing sound before closing her eyes again.

“Good enough confirmation for me.” Pam said with a smile.

“Then Amelia it is.” he said with a nod. He lightly touched the tip of the baby girl’s nose and smiled. “Amelia Beesly-Halpert.”

“I think she needs a middle name,” Pam said softly, gingerly touching the tip of her finger to the baby’s chin.

“You don’t think that Amelia Beesly-Halpert is a mouthful?” Jim teased.

“Oh it is,” she said, returning his smile, “I just figure we should make her extra special.”

Jim nodded thoughtfully, “I have so many boys’ names floating around in my head and so few girls’ names…”

“Maybe we should give her a family name,” she suggested.

“My grandmother’s name is Dorothy,” he shrugged. He looked down at the baby and she pushed her tongue between her lips.

Pam laughed softly, “Yeah, she doesn’t like that one.”

“My mom’s name is Larissa,” he offered. They both looked expectantly at their daughter and when the little baby made no response they turned towards one another.

“My mom’s name is Claire,” she said quietly, “what if we combined the two?”

“Larissa Claire?” he asked. “Really, Pam? Amelia Larissa Claire Beesly-Halpert?”

The baby’s eyes fully opened when Pam laughed loudly at Jim’s suggestion and she shook her head, “No, silly. Clarissa.”

“Hey,” Jim said nodding in approval, “now that is a creative combination!”

“Thanks,” Pam said proudly. “So what do you think? Amelia Clarissa?”

“I think it fits,” he said and smiled again as the baby pulled her tiny fist from her loose covering of blankets and stretched her hand up towards Jim’s chin. “Even she approves. Look at her raising her little fist in victory over her name.”

“Or she’s hungry,” she suggested with a smile, holding her arms out.

“Oh, if you insist,” he teased, carefully handing the baby over to Pam. “I have something for her anyway.”

“Oh really?” she asked.

“Well, to be fair, I wasn’t planning on giving it to her today, but I bought it soon after I had arrived in Australia,” he replied. He lifted himself from the bed and walked towards the door where he had discarded his suitcase as soon as he had walked into the room. He kneeled, his back facing Pam and the baby and started to dig through a couple of the pockets.

Pam watched curiously and whispered little things to Amelia that Jim couldn’t quite hear, but he was able to pick out the words, “Daddy” and “present” and “loves”. He smiled to himself as he continued to dig through crumpled clothes and a couple of plastic bags. He hoped that he hadn’t forgotten it in his frantic packing phase, but he was almost certain that he had put it in the suitcase and hadn’t removed it since.

Finally his fingers wrapped around the stuffed animal that he had purchased and he withdrew it victoriously.

“Ah ha!” he exclaimed, quickly returning to Pam’s side and lying the small gray and white koala bear on top of his daughters swaddled legs.

“So sweet,” Pam said quietly to herself before turning to Jim and thanking him.

“Really,” he said seriously, “I’m really, really sorry that I wasn’t here with you.”

“You did everything that you could,” she said. “I know you did. That’s all that matters, Jim.”

He nodded, he still didn’t feel validated for what had happened. He turned his gaze down towards the baby again and took a deep breath. He touched two of his fingers to her chest and felt her quick heartbeat against his fingertips.

“I promise,” he said in a quiet whisper, he wasn’t certain if it was aimed more towards Pam or Amelia. “I promise that I will always be with you. Always.”