Jim expressed a ravenous desire for food, and Pam and Larissa admitted they had not eaten anything substantial on their way to the hospital that morning, so Helene led the two of them out of Jim’s room and—after a quick consultation with the nurse, who confirmed that Jim was allowed solid foods if they brought them to him, and who asked for a mocha from the coffee shop—down the hallway, down a staircase, and through a pair of double doors into the cafeteria. Pam envied her mother’s ability to orient herself within the hospital until her mother pointed out the clear directional signs she had been following the whole way—after which she just felt silly.
The cafeteria was less like the high-school cafeteria of Pam’s youth and more like a mall food court—little kiosks with different cuisine options, all funneled through a single cashier. Helene grabbed the mocha for the nurse, a tray of egg rolls for herself, and a large lemonade; Larissa made a beeline for the burger bar; and Pam found herself in front of a Subway knock-off ordering two ham and cheese subs, one with chips and a cookie and one with chips and mixed berry yogurt, and two sodas. Grape, naturally. She was about to skip back up to the ICU and deliver Jim his food when her mother stopped her.
“Pam…I think Jim might need a few minutes without visitors to rest.”
Pam instinctively looked to Larissa for support. “But Jim said he was hungry!”
Larissa shrugged—Pam was pretty sure her facial expression, which mirrored Jim’s when Michael was being crazy, was Halpert code for “this one’s all you”—and Helene smiled at her daughter. “I know dear, but it’s not like you got him something hot that will cool down, and I think he could just use a few moments to close his eyes.”
Pam bit her lip. “He did just come from PT.” Helene nodded. “And they discovered he had a broken leg…” Pam trailed off. Her mother’s logic was sound, she had to admit. Much as she loved Jim, if she had had the morning he’d had she would probably need to close her eyes, and she hadn’t spent the last three days mostly out of it.
Helene expressed herself startled to discover both that Jim had been up for PT that morning and that he had discovered additional injuries when he did so, and she smoothly maneuvered Pam and Larissa over to one of the tables (after paying for their food—“I’m your mom, I get to pamper you, Pam. Larissa Halpert, don’t you make me take that bag away from you. I’m the mom, I get to pay”). She opened the little tray of egg rolls said “tell me everything about the accident” before popping one in her mouth and making direct eye contact with Pam.
As was becoming increasingly usual, Pam realized, Larissa took the lead.
“So, I don’t know how much Pam told you on the phone”—this was a lie, Pam reflected, since Larissa knew exactly what she’d told her mother on the phone, but probably a white lie—“but four days ago Jim was on the way to the airport, going to Australia…”
Pam let the words wash over her and thought back through the same time in her life. Four days ago she had been crying her heart out on her mom’s sofa, trying desperately to feel what she felt like she ought to feel: to be sad that she had broken Roy’s heart and left him almost at the altar, rather than that the man she had come to realize she truly loved had left her in turn. She couldn’t remember exactly what she had said to her parents, but somehow her mother had known—not said anything, not remonstrated with her or scolded her or criticized her, just known—that she wasn’t crying just about Roy. Maybe, she realized with a start, it was because she never cried to her mother about Roy anymore; she’d stopped really expecting things from him, so he’d lost the ability to hurt her this badly. It wasn’t that she never complained about Roy, or got sniffly about things, or even cried about a particular opportunity that had passed by because of his opposition to it (there had been at least one crying phone call when she’d turned down that graphic design internship, for instance) but she hadn’t really cried over Roy himself—over something he specifically did or said or how she felt about him—in years. Now, a broken engagement was different from a missed birthday party or a forgotten anniversary or a vacant Valentine’s, but it wasn’t that different. So her mother had known.
And now that she thought about it, maybe her mother had known about her plans for June 10, too. The last time her mother had offered to stay with her, to come down, to visit, and Pam had turned her down, she’d said “good luck.” Not “I’m sorry,” or “will you be OK?” or even “well, if that’s what you want.” She’d said “good luck,” and she’d sounded much less sorry that Pam wasn’t seeking out her company than Pam had expected. She hadn’t thought much of it then, being so focused on her battle of wills with herself to just call him, but now she recognized in that her mother realizing that there was something more going on. She might not have—probably didn’t—know exactly what, but she had understood it was more than Roy, and that whatever it was, Pam needed to work through it herself.
Of course, she hadn’t let her work it all out for herself, because here she was, sitting in the hospital listening to Larissa detail the reasons she had been alone, how and why she had called Pam, and how things had gone after that, all while shooting sympathetic glances Pam’s way. Pam was overcome with love and affection in that moment, and leaned over to give her mother a hug, uncaring which moment in the story she was interrupting. Her mother hugged her back and she glanced up at Larissa, who leaned into her self-appointed role as younger sister by sticking her tongue out.
Pam felt, for the first time since she’d heard that phone call, like things were going to be OK. She was going to go back upstairs—to her boyfriend, her Jim, who she’d finally told she loved him—and he would get to know her mom, and she’d make faces at Larissa, and it would all be OK.
