- Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
I think my favorite thing about writing is when the work takes you by the fingers and types itself. This idea was nowhere on my radar, and yet here it is, weaving its way through the rest of my story. I hope you like it :)

The jealousy panged in his gut like a suckerpunch, one that truly didn’t belong anymore, as he watched Halpert’s shoes disappear into her room. By lunch, he hadn’t so much as moved a box of paper, and feigning illness, he was out the door and parking his truck in the now familiar lot at Geisinger Community’s trauma center. But with his hands stuffed in his pockets as he followed the white and blue tiles to Room 172, the heels of black Nike’s beat him to the punch. He rounded the corner as Halpert’s shoes disappeared past her doorway.


He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop or pry or whatever, and made a certified lap around the building to the vending machine and back after he watched Halpert press play on a DVD, feeling kind of awkward and imposing. But, sitting with his knees spread wide as he waited outside her opened door, he couldn’t help but clench his fists at the soft words that tiptoed out the doorway.


He knew he had been a terrible fiance. He knew he was inattentive and rude, boorish and vulgar. He didn’t treat her the way she deserved to be treated when she was his, the way he had when they were younger. He’d taken advantage of what he had with her, and made assumptions about what it meant to spend forever with someone, to give your whole heart to another rather than taking theirs hostage and remaining only self-involved. It was how he had lost her.


What he didn’t need was for all of his transgressions to hit his ears at the lips of another. Halpert’s words were harsh and stinging, a blow to the head. And with all of those things fresh in her ears, he figured it was the best opportunity he had to say he was sorry, to truly make up for every moment he had spent being less than she deserved. But there he went, his mouth running away faster than his brain could catch up. He slipped. Right into the mud. Like when the four-wheeler would get caught in a hidden ditch, the tires flinging the slick stuff everywhere. She’d always hated cleaning the stains out of his jeans. She’d always done it, but her eye roll was undeniable each time he’d come home covered from head to toe in brown sludge.


But this time her eyes weren’t rolling. No. They were bulging, the tiny veins creeping red on her irises as she asked him for the second time in their lives Roy, who’s Melissa? It had sucked the first time. But she’d walked in on them, so there wasn’t really much to explain, more than where they’d met and, well, why. She spent two weeks at her parents’ place, came back, and after he spent a little time groveling, she said she would come back, so long as he promised it wouldn’t happen again.


And it didn’t.


Technically.


Not to the Pam whose memory was still in tact, who had shoved those things away and buried them well enough to still plan a wedding with him until she finally came to her senses and ditched him for a guy who would treat her right.


But to this Pam, the one who thought they were happy new homeowners who would spend their evenings picking color schemes and first dance songs and planning menus? It was all a fresh wound, adding to the ones that were finally beginning to heal on her cheeks.


He was making her relive quite possibly the worst part of their relationship all over again.


But this time, instead of sending her out the door in tears to her mother’s place across town, it sent her into some sort of convulsive state, where she couldn’t catch her breath, and the monitors around her were beeping like crazy, and her face was turning a shade of purple that cast a weird glow on her bruises. He never meant to cause her pain, but this was so much different. This had him crying and breathless and running from the room, both because he’d been banished and because the air in the room seemed to immediately thin. It didn’t even register that Halpert was outside the doors wheezing too, his own face blotchy and pinched while doctors and family alike tried to calm Pam naturally until sedation was the only option.


He once thought that his biggest regret in letting down Pam was by being dishonest, was cheating for over two months and getting caught and not doing everything in his power to make her believe it wouldn’t happen again. But now, with gravel from the hospital parking lot kicking around his ankles, he realized that he’d been wrong all along. His biggest regret was not loving her enough in the first place.


--


He’d never seen her like this.


Shades of purple so haunting beneath the oxygen mask, the cries from her throat almost barbaric, eyes burning when her tears were finally dried up and spent. They had to hook some sort of sedative to her IV, one that made her eyes roll back in her head as she slunk lifeless into stiff white cotton, a sight that almost had him reaching for the mask.


On the other side of the doorway, though, he was too far. Too far to help silence her cries and justify the lies and apologize until his lungs were dry and his lips were blue. His daily pledge to her was that he do her no harm, that he spend every waking second of his life showing her what it truly meant to be loved. Now, his actions were hanging in opposition. Despite the doctor’s decision, and what medicine and logic said would be right for her, he had done the very thing he had set out not to do.


She was in more pain now, possibly, than she had been throughout her entire hospital stay.


And he was to blame.


Torn between shoving through the door to her room to plead his sorrow at her feet and shoving through the doors of intensive care into oncoming traffic, he settled for taking a walk, his path aimless as he trekked through the hallways of the hospital that had quickly become familiar in his daily routine. He passed several elevator banks, opting instead for a staircase that would take him to the common area where vending machines and kiosks galore would await. But he wasn’t hungry, couldn’t stomach even the thought of food.


So he pressed on, his feet heavy but quick as he paced the halls, hearing stray coughs and moans, incessant beeping and the sounds of quick feet and shouting when a crash part blew past him. Down a left turn and two quick rights, he heard infants crying and gurgling, camera shutters snapping photo after photo. A nursery. He approached the glass, his fingers tapping as fleeting images from a future they might never have churned in his gut.


He felt as though he’d walked miles, the weight of his afternoon finally pressing down on him, shoving his rear end into a chair and his head into his hands, the beginnings of grease peppering his scalp unnoticed to fingertips that still were still numb and tingling.


He must have dozed, his head hunched between his legs, his back bent low at and awkward angle, because all of a sudden, he was being shaken back into consciousness by a hand so small, he was almost uncertain it was present on his knee.


“Hey. Mister? You’re snoring.”


The voice was insistent, raspy but high pitched, and as he blinked his eyes open, the frown and pinched eyebrows matched the annoyance. She couldn’t have been more than five years old, and the mass of blonde curls was wild and untamed, much like the personality that was already oozing from her rainbow striped leggings.


Still stunned, Jim shook sleep from his eyes and ears, blinked the sand away, and managed something like Huh? that had the little girl pointing at his nose, her eyes scrunched and her chin jutted forward.


“You were snoring. I can’t hear the TV. And Nurse Johnson gets real mad if I put it any higher than 8 this late. I already have it at 8.”


With her hands on her hips, the remote sticking out from her left, he had to chuckle in spite of himself, apologizing quietly as he twisted in the chair to stretch his back, blink his eyes rapidly, take in his surroundings. It was another clone of a waiting room, not unlike the one he had already grown accustomed to in another part of the hospital. Bland enough for him to settle into a memory of Pam, sitting on the couch in his apartment with the TV remote in hand, volume pushing on 40 before he covered his ears and winced.


“Beesly? Are you deaf?”


Her eyes didn’t even waver from the television, her lips pursed in concentration as Sawyer and Kate bickered in the jungle about one thing or another.


“You make a better door than a window.”


She cocked her head, doing her best to see around his thin frame as he stood in front of the sizeable screen.


“Seriously, my neighbors can hear this. Edna and Greg are like, in their nineties. I don’t think they watch Lost. You’re probably going to wake them up. They go to bed at like 5:30,” he said, his fingers already wrapped around the remote to wrench it from her fingers and turn down the volume.


“Hey! Now I can’t hear!”


With eyes wide, he turned to face her, Pam’s eyes still trained intently on the fictional program.


“Pam, do we need to get you outfitted for hearing aids--”


“Shh! Jim. Seriously. It’s Lost night.”


With his eyebrows quirked, he laughed--as quietly as he could--shaking his head as he settled into the corner of the couch with his arm resting along its back. As soon as he was settled, she scooted her body into the crook of his arm, her head finding his shoulder without a word spoken. Without her gaze wavering from the TV. What he thought was a move to hold his hand had him quirking his eyebrow as her fingers snaked over his on the remote to bump the volume back up to thirty-seven. He watched the mass of curls atop her head shift when the air puffed in his chest from a chuckle, murmuring, “If this is how it’s going to be for the rest of my life, I’m going to invest in a pair of headphones” into her mane with a soft kiss quick to follow.


Eventually, his eyes settled back on the little girl, her feet kicking the air where they failed to meet the floor from where she sat two chairs over, her eyes glued to the television as a blonde teenage girl sang on stage, some annoying kids’ pop song that he would have to beat out of his head later that night with his own earbuds. Her head was cocked to one side, her gaze intent as the kid show drama played out. As soon as the commercial hit, without pulling her eyes from the screen that was mounted into the ceiling, she said, “You know, they have extra beds that they can put in the rooms. Daddy got one so that when we visit mommy, he can sleep over sometimes.”


It was so much, and almost too much in the seconds it took for her to speak, for him to process. This little girl, seemingly alone in the waiting room of a hospital, on disciplinary terms with the nurses. Her mother in the hospital. Her father having sleepovers, just to be close. His worries were suddenly so small. When he found his voice, it was rough and scratchy.


“Oh-oh, really? You must come here a lot if your daddy sleeps over sometimes.”


He didn’t know how to ask, how to pry into the life of a child without the words Stranger Danger flashing above his head, so he waited for her to come to him.


“Yeah. Well, kind of. Mommy’s here all the time. She doesn't get to leave. So sometimes I come with daddy, and sometimes grandma and grandpa come and get me so I can go to soccer practice.”


“Oh. That sounds…” Fun? No. Interesting? She’s a kid, Halpert. “Well, I...I get it. Definitely not the most fun thing in the world to do.”


“You’re tellin’ me.” The way her eyes rolled, her voice hitched in a sarcastic tone, had him loosening up a bit.


But in his quest not to pry, he coughed in their silence, focused his attention on the program that he now recognized, thanks to his niece, as Hannah Montana. The characters were annoying, the songs likewise, but the little girl seemed intent on focusing all of her attention to the plot, her legs kicking all the while, the remote clasped between both hands in her lap.


“So why are you here?”


She was blunt, but not forceful, her head tentatively turning at a forty-five degree angle to see him from the corner of her eyes as another commercial played. It was all he had left to stop his face from scrunching, submitting to tears and breaking down in front of a child whose mother was bedridden somewhere. As he gathered his thoughts, the best way to explain this to a child, she interrupted him with, “Is your mommy having a baby, too?”


He chuckled, tension dissipating quite a bit at the thought of his mother at fifty-seven years old bearing another child. It also made him a little nauseous, but that was beside the point, especially when it clicked in his head that her mom was not only being hospitalized, but that this little girl’s new baby brother or sister could possibly be in danger, too.


“No, no, my, uh...my mommy is not having a baby. But that must be exciting for you, right? Is this your first time being a big sister?”


Her yes came with a puff of air, a sigh that told him she was less than thrilled. But he didn’t have to pry, as the words continued to tumble out. “It was exciting, until the baby made mommy sick. Now I’m just mad at it.”


With the layers of the onion peeling away, Jim continued to connect dots, to put distance between this little girl and his own peril.


“I’m sure the baby didn’t make your mommy sick on purpose,” he offered with a shrug. “It is just a baby, after all.”


She seemed to contemplate this for a moment, her chin perched in her fingers while her lips pursed and her eyes found the tiles in the ceiling.


“Okay, yeah, but, what if,” she began, her pointer finger jutting high above her head as her tiny mind formulated a theory, “what if the baby is just trying to get a head start? Like it’s trying to hog mommy from me before it even comes out? My best friend Peyton said that her new little baby brother-- Hold on, Hannah Mom-tana is back.”


And the moments from TV show to commercial seemed nonexistent, as she picked up right where she left off.


“...was so annoying when he was borned. Her mommy even brought a bed into his room! Can you believe it? I’m not about to give up my nigh-night story for a crying baby.”


Her lip furled outward in a pout at the same moment that her arms crossed, the remote now folded under her armpit.


“Hey now,” he chuckled, remembering his own fears about Larisa being born and his status as “baby of the family” being revoked. “Babies aren’t that bad. I had a baby sister growing up.”


“Really?”


Her angle changed now, so that her head would have to actively turn to see the television.


“Really really. I was about four when she was born--”


“Hey I’m four, too!”


His smile was warm, watching her hazel eyes light up, her legs tuck underneath her body so that she was sitting on her knees now.


“Did she try to make your mommy sick so that she could steal her?”


His head dropped, but only for a moment.


“No. No, she definitely didn’t do that. But, uh, I do remember that when my mommy’s tummy was really, really big, she couldn’t hold me on her lap anymore.” He watched then as the little girl’s eyes grew serious, her head nodding in agreement as he spoke. “And I was so, so mad that some other kid wasn’t letting me cuddle with my mom. I even had this plan to sell her away when she was born so that she couldn’t take my mom from me.”


She looked shocked, on the edge of How could you do that?! and Wait here while I grab a notebook and pen, but he pressed on when she asked, “So, what did you do?”


“Well, I stayed mad for quite awhile. But then one day, my dad said that it was time for mom to have the baby. I saved up a bunch of price tags from our bananas so I could put them on her once she came out but then...She was just so small. And so cute. And I got to sit on my mommy's lap again to hold her, and when I looked down at her, I swear to you, she smiled at me. And when she smiled? Man, I knew that it was going to be my job to protect her. I had to be there for her, be her big brother. It’s one of the most important jobs I’ve ever had.”


He looked on as her bottom sank onto her calves, her gaze disappearing to think. Despite the return of her show, her attention now focused solely on Jim.


“So, did you do it? Did you ‘tect her?”


“Oh, yeah, absolutely. I tried my best anyways. There were times when she fell of her bike and skinned her knee, or some kid was mean to her at school, and I felt really bad, like I wasn't doing my job. But then, I had the best job of making her laugh again. I mean, can you believe that that gets to be you pretty soon?”


Despite wary eyes, her lips began to quirk upward at one corner.


“Yeah. Yeah that does sound pretty cool.”


She settled back into her regular seated position then, eyes back on Hannah Montana, but her questions found no bounds now, as she spoke over a musical number.


“Hey, you beat up the bush!”


He pushed air quickly through his nose in both laughter and query.


“I...what?”


“You beated up the bush. That’s what daddy says I do when he asks who made the mess in the bathroom and I don’t answer him.”


It took a minute, but he nodded in the realization that he’d been caught.


“Why are you here?”


He took another deep breath, looked up to the ceiling, and turned his attention towards the little girl with the golden curls.


“My um..I...You have a mommy and a daddy, right?”


“Uh huh.”


“And they’re married?”


“Yup.”


“Well I...I’m not married yet, but I do have a girlfriend. Kind of like your mommy and daddy, but we’re not married yet.”


His thumbs twiddled in his lap.


“So you’re gonna get married?”


Staring down at his fidgeting fingers, he quirked a smile. “Hopefully, yeah.”


“Is she having baby?”


“No. No, she’s uh...she’s definitely not having a baby,” he chuckled, reminiscing on the month and a half that they’d been dating, and their mutual agreement to take things slow. It would be physically impossible for her to be pregnant. For the time being, he was okay with that.


“So why is she in the hopstickle?”


Here, he waited, deep in thought, processing the best way that he could explain all of this to a four year old. He thought of his niece Vanessa and how she didn’t quite understand great-grandpa’s passing at three years old. He thought of conversations had with Sasha, feeling so out of place when he had to remind her that momma and daddy still both loved her very much, even though daddy had a new house and momma had a new man living with her.


“She uh...she was in a bad car accident. Someone...another car crashed into hers and...she hurt her head pretty badly.”


It seemed to work well enough, the little girl’s Oh seeming to stem from understanding, shock, sorrow all at once.


“Yeah,” he continued, as if affirming that yes, this was his current truth, a reminder of sorts. “So. She’s on another floor right now until her head gets better.”


“So what are you doing up here watching Hannah Mom-tana?”


The little girl’s tone right now was almost a mockery. What are you doing here, Jim? Pam’s in the recovery wing and you’re in the maternity ICU watching the Disney Channel? Pathetic.


“Oh. She’s uh...she’s resting right now. You need a lot of rest when you have an owie on your head.” He tapped his temple twice, closing one eye to emphasize his point.


“But daddy stays with mommy when she rests.”


He was backed into a corner. This little girl was a spitfire, for sure, as she interrogated him, made him question his intent, scrap up a defense in his own honor, before he realized that the words he was preparing might break him.


“I...she...sometimes, when people...bonk their heads, they...they have trouble remembering things. She...she doesn’t remember me.”


It was the first time he’d spoken those words out loud. She doesn’t remember me. Doesn’t remember who I am. Has no recollection of the years we’ve spent together. His voice broke, despite his best efforts to keep the dam from flooding in front of this innocent little bean.


Her small Oh pushed through the cracks more, and it took his every effort to push back the tears and suck back the snot and keep a little girl from witnessing a mental breakdown.


This was a bad idea. Telling all of this to a little kid? A four year old? He was probably traumatizing her. She was already dealing with bedridden mother, and now, she was probably going to have nightmares about her parents forgetting her--


“Grandma doesn’t remember me sometimes.”


And there it was.


“A lot of times, she calls me Annie. That’s my mommy’s name.”


Her eyes flitted downward, but only for a split second.


“And daddy says that it’s not her fault, and that she still loves me. He says the dementors don’t like her memories, so they try to trick her. But the medicine is supposed to fight them. But he said that her heart really still loves me, so even though her words are silly sometimes, I should do my best job to remind her that I love her. That’s one of my jobs at home. My other job is cleaning my room and picking up the dog poop. Which I hate.”


As a self-proclaimed sap, he wasn’t surprised to find tears in his eyes, but he flicked them back with his fingers, not wanting to appear weak in the eyes of this little girl.


“Daddy says it’s okay to cry, too. He said it’s okay to feel sad, but to remember to still be strong for mommy. So we shouldn’t cry in front of mommy, ‘cause we don’t wanna stress her out. Even though I don’t know what that means.”


She shrugged then, slipping out of her chair to the table that sat in the middle of the U-shaped arrangement of chairs to bring him a box of tissues. He sniffled, a chuckled Thanks beating past his smile as he dabbed at his nose and eyes.


They watched the next show in contented silence, something about a teenager who could see the future but made a mess of things trying to stop it. Eventually, she toddled away, down the hall without so much as a goodbye. He didn’t have time to be disappointed when she returned a minute later with an armload of books.


“Wanna read to me? Daddy’s sleeping. He was up a long time last night because baby was really sick, so I don’t wanna wake him up.”


Jim nodded slowly, his grin soft and warm as she climbed into the chair next to him. They breezed through four different books, the character voice that he used so often with his nieces and nephews and Sasha Flenderson rusty but finding its way with each page that was read. When a pair of shoes entered the room, attached to a man who was yawning widely and rubbing one eye with a closed fist, she jumped from the chair and straight into his arms.


“Hey, princess. What are you doing, bothering this poor man?”


Jim shook his head at the man’s, presumably her father’s, apologetic gaze over the top of her head, curls so high they met his line of sight.


“She wasn’t bothering me,” Jim assured him, collecting the books as he watched the little girl yawn against the crook of her father’s shoulder.


“Yeah, dad. I wasn’t bothering him. He’s here with a sick friend, too.”


“Oh, really? Well, maybe when we go to the chapel for mommy and baby, we can say an extra prayer.”


Her head bobbed up and down frantically, the father’s stare apologetic in a new way as he spoke to Jim.


“That would be great. Thank you. Uh, likewise.”


As he shoved his hands in his pockets, the little girl and her father turning to leave, her head sprang up as she all but yelled, “Wait! I don’t know your name. How are we s’possed to pray if we don’t know your name?”


He smiled them, her innocence a welcome change to the hell he’d been through as of late.


“I’m Jim. And uh, my girlfriend’s name is Pam.”


“Jim and Pam,” she repeated. “Got it.”


“And I can pray for Annie and baby, right?”


“Yup, Annie and baby,” she nodded. “Baby doesn’t have a name yet, because we don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. If it’s a girl, I want to name her Princess Sparkles Unicorn. And if it’s a boy, I’m sending it back to the Stork.”


Both men shared a much needed laugh then, as Jim shook hands, learning that Annie was married to Ben and that he would be in their prayers, both men promising to say hi if they saw each other around the hospital. These walls could be a drag, it was nice to have support, and all that jazz. As they turned to leave again, it was Jim who stopped the little family.


“I don’t think I caught the big sister’s name. She could probably use a prayer too,” he offered.


“I’m Cece. Cecelia Marie.”


Chapter End Notes:

:) 


You must login (register) to review or leave jellybeans