He knows she’s watching him.

Even though his eyes are shut and the phone is still clutched to his ear, he can feel her eyes boring into his back.

He has to say something, he really should tell her everything.

But where to begin? ‘So you know Pam from the office, well I was absolutely in love with her when I worked here…to make a long story short, her daughter Adele, she’s actually mine.’

But truthfully, at this moment he’s not even sure he cares if Karen freaks out. He has a daughter, a gorgeous little girl with her mother’s smile and his eyes. His eyes, Janine’s eyes.  God no wonder he had always had such a visceral surge of affection for Adele, she looked just like his sister Janine, before. Before.  And now his child is in the hospital, fighting for her life.

And he’s standing here like an idiot trying to somehow explain everything to the woman he’s a few months from marrying. Does it matter anymore? Does it matter at all?

“Jim?” she asks, “Is everything Ok” something inside of him bristles when he hears the accusation in her question. She’s been jealous of Pam since she heard the whispers in the office about his and Pam’s ‘lost love.’ But a princess cut solitaire and his stony face had been enough to ward off all her questions since they had moved back 10 months ago.  “Why was she calling you? Is everything Ok?” her voice isn’t filled with concern as much as it is curiosity and for some reason every syllable that falls from her mouth makes him more and more irrationally angry.

“No, no it’s not.” He covers his eyes with his hands, “Adele, Pam’s daughter, was shot by her ex-husband.”

“What?” Karen’s exclamation is genuine and the look of fear that crosses her face is very real. Jim isn’t particularly surprised, even Karen hasn’t been immune to Adele’s many charms. With her cherubic, rosy face and loving personality Adele had somehow managed to capture the attention and the hearts of all of Pam’s office mates. Jim’s pretty sure that 3 year old was even written into some of the office workers’ wills at this point. “Is she Ok? Jim, is she alright?” Karen asks with a real sense of urgency in her voice.

He softens at her look of concern. He shrugs his shoulders and his voice comes out almost as a sob as he stares at his hands, “I don’t know Karen, she’s in critical condition. I just have to…Oh God, I just have to get over there.”

Karen glances at him strangely at his sudden loss of control but she simply nods and begins to gather her things, “Let’s get going.” She says quietly and before he knows it they’re speeding towards the hospital and although Jim knows nothing will ever be the same he can’t think about anything but the little girl with Janine’s eyes fighting for her life.

He’s not sure what he expects to see when he encounters Pam and her mother in the surgery waiting room, anger, frustration, betrayal, love, sympathy? All those emotions and more rush at him like a tidal wave when he sees her tear stained face peek out from behind her ashen hands. He says her name like a prayer and suddenly she’s thrown herself in his arms and at this moment it isn’t about just them anymore. Because at this moment he’s the only person on earth who knows how she feels. His arms encircle her instinctively and he knows nothing has felt this right, even though everything is all wrong.

He manages to whisper in her ear, “Karen doesn’t know Ok?” she nods against his shirt and he can feel her tears soak into his skin. He tightens his hold on her and although there is so much he wants to ask, so much he needs to know there’s only one question on his mind right now, “How is she doing?”

Pam pulls back and for the first time he can see the bruise that’s formed on her face and the blood that stains her clothes, his daughter’s blood. Suddenly the room is too warm and he hears the blood pulsating through his ears once more. “She’s in surgery, Jim…ou…my baby is in surgery. They’re removing her spleen,” and although she’s trying desperately to finish her sentence before collapsing into tears once more, all she manages is a strangled, “She was in shock and they had to…they said that…” and although he needs to know the rest he lowers her back to her seat and lets her sob into his shoulder.

Pam’s mother reaches out and grasps his hand, he can tell that she’s already cried her fair share of tears and she suddenly looks so much older than when he last saw her. “She had gone into hypovolemic shock, she was internally hemorrhaging so they had to remove her spleen to stop the bleeding.”

His fists tighten involuntarily and suddenly he can’t breathe, he just needs to…he’s not sure how…there is so much and all he can gasp out is “How?”

Pam stiffens and manages to rise from his shoulder and shake her head ever so slightly, and suddenly he knows with a sickening sense of dread that all of this has to do with him.

“Roy?” he asks.

“He’s dead, at least I think he is,” Pam replies her tone flat, “It was a mistake when he shot her...When I tried to call the police afterwards he told me was sorry but that if I called them…he said he wasn’t going to jail and he said that if I called them that he would…I had to call she needed help....I called and he shot himself.”