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Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint on it you can. ~Danny Kaye
Pam was being discharged from the hospital. As she stepped outside, the spring day embraced her with a freshness that cleared her mind. She took a deep breath and the scent of budding trees and green grasses filled her lungs. The breeze ruffled her hair, but she made no move to brush it back as she walked towards the awaiting car.
Although she was relieved to be free from the confinements of her hospital room, she was nervous to embark on this new life. The Andersons had proven to be nothing, but loving and caring - that alone should have eased her mind, but it only made it worse. With every passing day, Adele’s warmth towards her and the baby only made her guilt bubble to the surface of her skin.
But what choice did she have? Return to Scranton and have her baby ripped out from her arms? She also had to think about Adele. What would happen to her if she left? Taking this baby from her would break her heart. Pam couldn’t do that. As much as her heart ached for Jim, ached to share the little bundle growing inside her with him, she couldn’t. That thought alone brought her to tears.
“Oh, honey,” Adele said while helping Pam into the awaiting town car. “Everything is going to be alright.”
Pam looked at Adele’s pale features and smiled. “I know… It’s just—”
“Kenny will never be totally gone, dear,” Adele said, entering the town car and sitting next to her. “A small piece of him is growing inside of you.”
“Yeah,” Pam agreed.
Adele gave directions to the driver and continued talking to her, but her words faded away as Pam’s thoughts intruded. No matter how far away she ran, he would always be with her. Pam would always carry a piece of Jim with her.
To avert her mind from wandering places that were too painful to roam, she decided to focus on gazing out the window – the engine noise, the repetition of stop signs and streetlights would make her calmer, would anesthetized her, and make her forget…. everything.
“Pam. Pam?”
She jerked her head to gaze at Adele. “Huh?”
“We have a room just for you,” Adele said. “It’s not quite ready, but we wanted you to have your own space.”
Pam shifted uneasily. “Oh Adele, you didn’t have too.”
Adele patted Pam’s leg, “Nonsense, dear. We want you to feel at home.”
Pam offered her a feeble smile. Home.
When they finally rounded the corner, entering the Anderson’s estate, Pam was dumbfounded by the size of the house. It was bigger than she expected it would be – a Victorian monster, big enough for a family of twelve and their servants to live in. The front door porch alone looked twice the size of her apartment back in Scranton. She knew the Anderson’s were well off, but she didn’t know they were this well off.
“Wow,” Pam said, her mouth hanging open. “This is a really nice house.”
“Thanks, dear. It’s your house now too.”
Pam’s amazement only doubled once she was led inside. The interior had high ceilings, complete with a fireplace with a marble mantel, and ornate woodwork was seen all around. Although the house was clearly professionally decorated, it had a homey feel to it. The wall colors were warm and inviting, the family pictures and books lying around the house added to that feeling. Pam wandered through the house touching the walls, running her hands over the furniture, the cherry windowsills…
“Hey.”
Pam heard a voice that had become so familiar to her.
“Hey, Roy,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Yeah…” He said, “Actually, I live here now.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I’m going to stay and help dad with the business since Kenny…”
“Oh…. You okay with that?”
“I think I’ll be okay.”
Roy had been there for Pam for the last two weeks while she was at the hospital. He had visited her every single day. He even went to her sonogram two days ago. Pam thought he was nice, attentive even. She appreciated his kindness. But that was it.
“So, how are you feeling?”
“I’m doing okay.” Pam smiled slightly and looked down at her hands.
“Your arm healed up nicely,” Roy said pointing to the scar on her forearm.
“Yeah, it did.”
“Hey um...” Roy said, shifting from one leg to the other. “Do you want me to show you to your room?”
“Ummm….sure.”
Roy led her up the stairs and down a long hallway. He stopped in front of a door and as soon as he opened it, a beautifully furnished room came into view. Pam was awestruck. There was a queen size bed facing the doorway with two night stands on each side. Pale, white curtains billowed with the afternoon breeze as the golden sunlight peered through them. She walked further into the room and saw a small bassinet tucked in the corner wall.
She walked closer and slowly touched the edges of the bassinet.
“Do you like it?”
Pam turned around and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “This is… I don’t….I-I...”
“I’m glad you liked it.”
Pam smiled. “I really do.”
Pam walked to the edge of the bed and sat there looking out the window. It was like her life was temporarily off track, but now it seems that it would soon right itself again. Perhaps there was calm after the storm. The Andersons were a sliver of light that appeared at the end of the tunnel. It was merely a dot on the horizon at that moment, but it was there nonetheless, and it provided her with renewed focus and a renewed sense of what life would be like once survival mode was a distant past. This was her life now. This was her new home.
“Hey,” Pam said, turning to look at Roy, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure” he said.
“Do get me wrong, but… Your family has all this and this is your house….Why were you in Scranton?”
Roy stiffened from head to toe. Pam was quick to notice. “Um….I’m... It’s a bit um…” He faltered. “Sometimes dad and I didn’t see eye to eye….”
“Okay,” Pam said. The change in Roy’s demeanor alerted her that Roy didn’t want to expand on the subject. “Sorry, I just—”
“No need for apologies,” Roy said, smiling down at her. “Everybody needs to get away sometimes, right?”
She definitely could empathize with that. “Right,” Pam said.
“Shall we?” Roy said gesturing towards the door. “I think lunch is ready.”
“If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to rest for a bit.”
“Oh yeah….you’re probably tired. I’ll let my mom know.”
“Thanks, Roy.”
Roy smiled and closed the door behind him.
Pam lay down on the bed and gazed up at the ceiling. She closed her eyes and let her mind roam to the one place she had avoided for the past couple of weeks – the place she wanted to forget. God, she wanted the pain to go away.
“Margaret?”
“I know…”
“You just got yourself kicked out of your apartment.”
“Oh… I didn’t like that place that much anyways. I’ll just move.”
“Oh really? Who’s gonna to take you in? You’re messy. You’re a klutz. You spill everything. And you leave the volume on the TV way too loud.”
“Yeah… Maybe I’ll just move in with my boyfriend, ‘cause he’s kind of a slob, too.”
“Okay. Sure. Let’s do it.”
“No, I…Well, I’m not gonna… I’m... I’m not going to move in with anyone unless I’m engaged.”
“Have I not proposed to you yet?”
“Ummm, I don’t…No...umm—”
“Oh… Well, that’s coming.”
“Oh, right now?”
“No, I’m not going to do it right here. That would be rather lame.”
“Okay, so then when?”
“Pam, I’m not going to tell you. Hate to break it to you, but that’s not how that works.”
“Oh, right. Yeah…”
“Wait, I’m serious. It’s happening”
“Ookay.”
“And when it happens it’s going to kick your ass, Beesley. So... stay sharp.”
“I’ve been warned.”
That was the first time Jim mentioned he was going to marry her. She couldn’t explain the feeling, but she recognized the sincerity in every word he said and she welcomed the warmth that flooded her body from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. For the first time in her life she had been able to see everything laid out, like a map, all future, all bright. But in the blink of an eye, everything turned dark.
Outside the sun was lowering in the horizon.
***
It was still early in the evening, but Jim laid on his bed – on the wrong side, Pam’s side. Everything was subtly different from that side of the bed. He laid there looking at the armchair with his clothes scattered all over it. His new apartment could probably qualify for Federal Disaster Relief funds. He hadn’t unpacked and what he did unpack was strewn around haphazardly.
When Jim was not at work, he tried to inhabit sleep, willing it, not wanting to stay awake. Sleep was his forgetting, his opiate, and his oblivion. And when sleep abandoned him, he remedied his insomnia with a bottle of Bailey’s.
He wanted to move on. But he knew he would never find someone like Pam. And that was part of the reason he fell in love with her – because she was different from every women he’d dated. Even her imperfections made her all that more beautiful because she was real to him. There was this girl at work, Karen, who seemed to be into him and she was cute, funny, and smart. Their parents were friends and she knew who he was. But he couldn’t see her as anything but a friend because Pam was so wonderfully woven into every muscle fiber of his heart that it was impossible to remove her from it. But perhaps he needed someone to be just a friend.
It was nearing five o’clock the next day and Jim was sitting on his desk, finishing his expense reports, when Karen walked back in the office. He smiled politely and she did the same, but when she sat at her desk, she released a frustrated sigh.
Jim couldn’t help but notice. He swiveled his chair around and asked, “Didn’t make the sale?”
She looked at him and said with a huge gush of air. “No. It’s like the third time this week.”
“C’mon, it’s not that bad. Plus, those sales were doomed to fail anyways. “
“I know, but I stupidly thought I could make them.”
“Don’t stress over’em,” Jim said and smiled. “There’s always tomorrow.”
Karen smiled. “I guess. It’s just… No, it’s nothing.”
“What?”
“I just… I really need to make the Johnson sale tomorrow. That would be a huge account.”
“Do you want me to help you? We could go over your sales pitch. “
“I like that. We could go to Bradford’s. Don’t worry, drinks are on me.”
“Ummm….”
“If you don’t like Bradford’s, we could go to this little Irish pub on Belmont. It’s nice and there are no crow—”
“No it’s not that... It’s um…” Jim thought it over. He would be just helping her. That’s all, right? It was better for him to drink under the supervision of another human being anyways. Who knew what he would do after drowning his sorrows at home tonight. Jim knew was at rock bottom, but a single glass would give him a shovel to dig further into the black hole his life had become without Pam. “You know what? Bradford’s sound great.”
“Okay. You’re on, Halpert,” Karen said with a sheepish smile.
After work, Jim and Karen met up, and began going over Karen’s sales pitch. At first, it was all business, which Jim was thankful for. Karen was professional and she was actually taking notes and nodding to everything he was saying. He gave her good pointers. He even let her in some of his sales tricks. But the drinks began flowing, and the conversation veered from its original path.
“So Halpert, why are you here, selling paper?” Karen asked.
Karen had always spoken her mind, but this one caught him a little off guard. “Well, I’m pretty good at it,” Jim said, taking a swig of his beer.
“I know you had a cushy job working for your dad. This is not a step up.”
“Well, I just needed to….get away,” Jim said with a shrug.
“That bad, huh?”
Jim nodded. “Yep.” Talking to her suddenly felt good. It was nice to have someone who knew him.
“Hey, is Scranton as bad as they say it is?” Karen asked.
Jim chuckled. “There’s definitely more play than work.”
“Did you know the diversity training we had last week was because of an incident in Scranton?”
“Yeah, Michael’s quite the boss….”
“I wouldn’t be able to work there. I can’t believe you lasted six months there.”
Jim took another pull of his beer and said, “Yeah… I don’t know.”
“What made you transfer here?”
He studied his beer bottle. “I got promoted.”
“Right… I’m glad.”
Jim watched Karen’s face flush red. Their eyes met and emotions he couldn’t define hovered just below the surface – emotions he wasn’t ready to define. He cleared his throat. “I’m glad too,” he said. His cheeks burned – he blamed the alcohol.
Chapter End Notes:
I want to say thank you to all of you who have been reading this story.
