Three Months Prior
“Listen to me,” her mother drew her attention away from the phone in her hand with enough time to get the rest of her sentence in “you can go over to Maren’s house after school,” Cecelia gave her the million dollar smile that won her the charm over most anyone she met, and while it may not have cost exactly a million dollars, braces were expensive. “But, you are not to get in the car with her and drive anywhere. I know her parents are fine with her driving friends around but you’re fourteen and I don’t feel comfortable with you driving around the city with someone who just got their license…barely” Pam let that last part slip out unintentionally but it was true. Maren had only just passed her drivers license exam and she was not about to let Cece get into a car with another child who also had her phone glued to her hand.
“Mom, I won’t ride with her. I won’t get in the car, I swear, we’re just hanging out at her house, plus Phil’s going to be there anyway,” she rolled her eyes so hard, Pam was convinced they’d be stuck in the back of her head forever.
“Phil and Grayson are going to play video games, Cece. You know as well as I do, he’s not going to be paying any attention to what you do, so I expect you to behave and listen, and not get into any trouble,” She eyed her daughter, one eyebrow raised in suspicion. This was her father’s doing after all. She never would have dared sneak out in the middle of the night to meet boys, or try to fill the schools hallways with solo cups of water in the middle of the night, or in her latest act of rebellion, turning every single object upside down in Philips room including his bed and telling him he must be seeing things.
Cecelia Marie Halpert was her father’s daughter and that was putting it lightly. Although on the outside, others may beg to differ. If you put the tall lanky girl next to her mother you’d notice the same curly auburn hair, hazel eyes, dimples embedded in her cheeks, and terrible vision requiring her to wear her very favorite, dark rimmed glasses. Inside, however? That was a Halpert. She was funny, she knew the right things to say to get herself out of trouble, she had a smile that made middle school boys melt at her feet, and she was smart as a whip. School came easy to her, and in a lot of ways led to her finding a way to make things there a little more intersting.
With that big personality came the need to push boundaries as a preteen, and seek out as many adventures as the suburbs of Austin would give her. She’d been playing travel basketball all summer and to be fair, she’d barely had any time to herself. If she wasn’t studying for her 9th grade honors classes, she was at practice or a game, or being driven to a game that sometimes could be as far away as Dallas. Jim was the assistant coach and that meant he was at every game as well, and practice, and so their time as a family was limited and precious.
She was so thankful for Philip’s mild mannered self and his ability to conform to any situation he was in. Sometimes that was sleeping in a strange city in a new hotel for a night and then going on the road again, all for the allegiance of his sister's love for the game. Sometimes, it was just him and Pam on the couch, him dozing off to the scary movie he’d begged to watch, or trying to finish a level on Roblox while Pam would sketch in her artbook. Having preferred parents was most definitely a thing and she remembered a time when Cecelia would go nowhere without her. She’d clung to her leg so tightly whenever she was out of the house, and when Jim had spent so much time away at Athleap she’d even been hesitant to let him tuck her into bed, feed her dinner, or just carry her around. Pam desperately wished she’d go to Jim just for a break during those hard months, but now that they were all together, the children growing quicker than she could keep up with, she longed again for her baby to need her.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like Maren and Grayson’s family. They’d lived next door to them in Austin for the past ten years and they’d become like a second family. They had barbecues together, Jim played cornhole with Dave, and Pam and Katherine had both shared a love of art and often would do water colors together on the weekend. It was just that they were a bit careless, in Pam’s opinion. Maren and Grayson were not often denied anything they wanted, and in turn, some of the pre teen attitude in the Halpert’s home had most definitely been rubbed off. Maren always spoke her mind, which Pam appreciated being tha it took her so long to dig up the courage to do the same, but she was older than Cece, she’d had a little more experience in life, and sometimes Pam worried she’d have too much influence on pushing Cece towards boyfriends and relationships and worrying about her body. The snapbacks that she had adorned for the past seven years almost every day were being replaced by a flatiron each morning to her hair. Pin straight. Sometimes Pam felt like she was literally burning the only part of her that reminded her of herself. Her heart was aching this morning.
“Stop worrying, Mom. I promised I wouldn’t do anything stupid, we’re going to play a game of pick up, I’ll be right across the street and I won’t get in that gorgeous new car she got for her birthday,” Cece glanced out the window at the bright red convertible sitting in the driveway next door.
“I’m only going to be gone a few hours, Dad’s working upstairs but he’s in meetings, so please only get him if it’s an actual emergency. Just send him a text if you need anything else. There’s stuff to make sandwiches in the fridge, make sure you take some time to look at Of Mice and Men today, you’ve got to have that finished before you go back to school at the end of next week, and then you have practice tonight at five, so please be ready before I get back.”
Cece just nodded and watched as her mother grabbed her large bag of art supplies off to teach a class somewhere to a group of elderly people. Her mother was an art therapist, and although she didn’t really know what that entailed, she knew she made people happy and her Mom loved her job. She just could be a little…uptight. She was always worried about what her and her brother were up to. Phil was never up to anything. He still liked dinosaurs, and reading books about space and shooting bad guys with giant guns in war simulation games. As soon as her mother left, she heard the door to the upstairs office creak open and footsteps coming down the stairs. Jim had been dressed in a shirt and tie from the waist up, but his classic basketball shorts he wore below. The perks of online conference meetings.
“Hey bug, what are you up to?” He planted himself on the couch with a sigh and stretched his arms behind his head, resting his hands on his hair.
“Going to Maren’s, Mom said it was fine,” Jim glanced out the window at the next door neighbors house and felt something uncomfortable stir inside him.
“You know what,” his lips pulled at the corner of his mouth into a smile, “I actually had my last meeting canceled for the afternoon, and since you’ve got a few hours until practice I was thinking maybe we could do something fun, the three of us.”
She glared at him, her brain already spiraling into a million things as to what ‘fun’ could mean to her Dad, and waited for him to continue.
“You know that hiking trail that just opened up down at the waterfront? What if we grabbed the bikes and headed down to that spot. We could pack some food, go for a quick ride, maybe stop and get an ice cream at the place you like?”
She sighed, letting a smile creep onto her lips. It did sound fun, and she didn’t always get time with her Dad that wasn’t him yelling instruction courtside.
“Yeah,” when she piped up Jim grinned enthusiastically and mentioned he’d be upstairs changing and to have the two of them get ready quickly, and he’d put the bikes on the rack of the SUV.
When they were nestled comfortably in the car, music quietly playing in the background, Cece watched out the window as the trees went by, the green grass fading, a quick reminder school would be starting soon, and rubbed her hands to her temples. The headaches were creeping in again, and it seemed as though lately she had one every day.
“Dad, I need tylenol,” he glanced over at her,
“Uh do you need anything else” She knew what he was insinuating.
“No. No Dad, no. I just have a headache”
“Again?” he sounded concerned.
“I’m just not drinking enough water I think,”
“We’ll stop at CVS on the way to the park,” he paused, “are you sure you’re up for a bike ride?”
“Yeah,” she laid her head back against the seat, letting her eyes drift close as the sunlight danced across her face, shadows from the trees casting lines every so often and Jim couldn’t help but feel slightly concerned about the afternoon.
Going for a quick bike ride, be home about 4:30. Tacos after the game? Jim texted his wife quickly and slipped his phone in his side pocket and hopped out of the car, unhooking the bikes from the rack. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the weather still warm, but with no humidity it made doing outdoor activities in the summer a little more bearable. The kids stood watching, Cece typing furiously on her phone, and Phil glancing around the park at the other families,
“Dad, when can we get a dog?”
“Phil I told you, they’re so much work and right now we’re just really busy,”
“All these other people have dogs, and i’m sure they are busy too,”
Jim sighed, “We’ve talked about this buddy, maybe when you guys are a little older we can think about getting a dog, but right now it just wouldn’t be fair to it with our schedules.” He heard his son humph and then hop on his bike taking the lead down the new trail, getting a long head start.
Cece had rushed on her bike as well, the breeze pulling her hair back behind her shoulders and Jim stopped to take in the beauty of the little girl he and Pam had made. She was growing up, looking more like Pam each year and he was dreading the insanity of high school he knew she’d be stepping into next year. They were lucky enough to find an incredible Waldorf school for both of the kids to go to through 8th grade, but now it was time for public high school and he worried immensely about what boys were like these days. His mind drifted into the possibility of keeping boys at bay with some sort of weapon, but Jim Halpert was not Dwight Schrute and there would be nothing of the sort in his house. Maybe he could just stare boys down and give them the fear of God through his eyes, but he doubted it. Pam told him the only thing his stares did were make her melt into a pile of mush. Not exactly what he was going for. His trance was suddenly broken by a shriek ahead of him on the trail.
“Dad!” his son was screaming his name in a panic he hadn’t heard in years. He heard it once when Pam had begun to push during labor and it continued well into the afternoon. Again when his mother called to tell him his father had passed and she couldn’t control her sobs through the phone, and now, he only could imagine what lay above him on the trail. He panicked, dropping his bike, and instead now running on foot as fast as they could take him. He found Philip standing over his sister who was slumped over on her side at the edge of the trail, her bike flipped over a guard rail.
“Cece” it was almost a hurried whisper that came out of him filled with panic and fear and trying to keep himself steady not to worry his son who was watching his every move carefully.
“Dad, she’s shaking,”
He’d never seen anything like it, and he never wanted to again. His daughter was violently shaking from head to toe, and something sounded like she was gagging. He immediately flipped her on her side, pulling her to him and holding her tight against his legs.
“Philip do not move,”
“Fuck,”
He watched his son's eyes travel up to his face in shock of his language as he fumbled with his cellphone trying to call 9-1-1 and simultaneously text Pam to meet him at the hospital on Mueller. Cece was still shaking, he noticed her legging were soaked, and he put his hand to his forehead, anxiously looking around to see if anyone was on the trail near them to help. The deep woods closed around him and the only sound was the operator on the phone asking him the location he was calling from. He stumbled between ‘the park’, ‘new trail’, ‘maybe a half a mile’. Pam still hadn’t read his text message, he found his own hands shaking against Cecelia’s body and fought to hold her as still and close to him as possible. He noticed her phone, still open to a text message thread with Maren lying broken on the road next to him, the screen cracked down the center.
I’m so fucking sick of basketball, but I swear Mare, if I stop playing it might actually kill my Dad
