Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad. ~Author Unknown
Jim left the Anderson's house with a lump lodged in his throat. The images of the past half hour played in his mind like a silent movie. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel Cece's small hand wrapped around his index finger and if he inhaled too deeply that sweet baby smell would swamp all his senses. There was also the undeniable pull Pam still had over his heartstrings. Jim had forgotten how it felt to be completely and utterly in love with someone, to the point where you don't doubt for a second that they are the one you want to spend the rest of your life with.
Jim had decided to not plan his conversation with Pam. Planning had only backfired before. This time, he was simply letting his heart do the talking. But before meeting her at the hotel, Jim needed to pay someone else a visit. During the twenty-six hours it took him to get to Philly from Australia, Jim was able to place all the pieces together. It all connected – it all made sense. Once again, Jim's had been just another pawn in one of his dad's shameless games. But this time, Gerry had gone too far.
Jim arrived at his parent's house and chose to wait for Gerry in his study, knowing it was the first place he would retreat to once he arrived home. When Jim heard the door screech open, he slowly swiveled himself on the chair and watched his dad's face turn ghostly pale.
"J-Jimmy? Whaa…What a-re you—"
"Surprise!" Jim exclaimed, jumping to his feet in mock excitement. "Look at you," Jim said walking over to his dad and placing an arm over his shoulder, "You look like you just seen a ghost."
"I-I'm just… surprised. That's all," Gerry said and plastered a strained smile on his face. "W-When did you arrive?"
"This morning."
"Oh, okay. H-how was your flight?" Gerry asked, loosening the knot on his tie.
Jim was not a sadist, but he was enjoying watching his dad slowly crumble. He couldn't remember ever seeing Gerry anything less than supremely confident. "It was long. But enough about me, how've you been?" Jim asked, walking towards the business board on the corner wall. "I see you've added a few more clients since I left. Business has been good, huh?"
"I can't complain," Gerry said and walked around his mahogany desk and sank on his black leather chair. "How long are you planning on staying?"
"I don't know… haven't decided yet," Jim said nonchalantly.
"Don't you have school?"
"Oh yeah… I do, but I'm taking a break," Jim said and added under his breath, "I should probably tell my professors."
Gerry turned, surprised. "You mean you didn't tell them you're taking a vacation?"
"I didn't have time to… You see, I got this email from mom and," Jim pulled out the printed picture of Pam and Cece and slammed it down on the table. Gerry's jaw dropped open and his eyes, widened and tense, fixated on the photo. "I hope you understand why I didn't have time to explain my absence to them." Jim walked around the desk and whispered in his dad's ears, "Ask me again how long am I planning on staying?"
Gerry's mouth moved wordlessly. He began to say something but Jim interrupted, "I know you've met Pam before; you already know everything about her, right?" Jim said and slowly walked to the front of the desk and placed his hands on either side of it. "But have you met your granddaughter, Cecelia?"
Gerry's eyes left the photo and met Jim's.
Jim straightened and stared at his father, the anger in his eyes were building like a sudden storm. "You already knew that, right?"
"Jimmy," Gerry began, "You got it all wrong. I have no idea wha—"
Jim chuckled sardonically. "I have it all wrong? Let's do the math, shall we?" Jim paced around the room as if levitating off the floor. "Pam told me she was pregnant in May, that was nine months ago. Cecelia was born a week and a half ago. Coincidence? I think not. You began working with the Anderson's in October. And for some inexplicable reason you didn't want me here for Thanksgiving. But I gotta hand it to you… the Australia thing for Christmas? That was brilliant."
Disturbed by his all-too-accurate assessment, Gerry argued, "Jimmy, she's the Anderson's granddaughter. Their son—"
"Yeah, yeah their son died…. Mom told me the story. Well, guess what?" Jim's mouth curved upward but his look was hardly a smile. "You and I know that's not true."
"Jimmy, you are over thinking—"
"Stop!" Jim exclaimed, slamming the table with his closed fists. The bright alertness of Jim's gaze focused on Gerry like a sun through a burning glass."Stop with the charades! Do you understand what you have done? Because of you I have missed the birth of my child. I can never, ever get that back," he said through clenched teeth.
Gerry exhaled, unwilling to admit anything that awful. "You can't pin it all on me. She's the one that told you she wasn't pregnant."
"Do you know why she did that? I'll tell you…" Anger stirred violently in him. "Because YOU made me believe Pam was just another Katy. You said you had proof she was lying to me." Jim raked his hands wrathfully through his hair and said, "I knew she wasn't. But YOU kept planting your malicious seed in my head. You did this, not her. But the one thing I can't figure out is how you knew she was pregnant."
Gerry looked down in shame and said, "The PI I hired saw her buying a pregnancy test. I thought she was just another Katy. I had to warn you."
"Stop trying to protect me. I can take care of myself."
Gerry's brow lifted and forged a series of deep creases on his forehead. He set his forearm on the table and said, "You can never be too careful."
Jim felt sick to his stomach. "You single-handedly ruined my life. Do you have any idea what I've been through these past nine months? Do you have any idea how I felt looking at this picture 10,000 miles away, knowing she was mine?" Jim paced the room controlling the anger bubbling within him. "I bet mom doesn't know that little baby, whom she's so fond of, is actually her grandchild. She's going to be very happy to know that Cecelia was named after her mother, don't you think?"
"Jimmy, you could be jumping the gun here. Have you thought about that?"
"Have I thought about it? Pam and Cece are ALL I think about," Jim spat back. "I knew from the second I saw this picture that she was mine." Jim closed his eyes, running his thumb over where Cece's fingers had been wrapped around. "Pam was pregnant in May and you sure as hell would know if she was cheating on me, right?" He said and leaned over the table so his face was closer to Gerry. "She's mine."
Complete silence filled the room as Gerry looked at Jim stunned.
"Don't look so surprised. I had over twenty-six hours to prepare for this conversation. Sorry to spring this all on you," he said mockingly. "What did you think was going to happen? Were you going to keep me away forever?"
"No… I-I would—"
"What's the difference between Vanessa and Cecelia, huh? I heard you're taking her to see Wynton Marsalas. Some grandpa/granddaughter bonding time?"
Gerry hung his head and layers of bitterness and shame crumbled, and fell against his chest.
"You need to acknowledge you've made an enormous mistake. Actually, it wasn't a mistake. Mistakes are accidental. This was an ongoing and very purposeful scheme. The only mistake you made was judging Pam's intentions. But then, hiding her from me, when you knew," Jim paused and looked straight into his dad's eye, "You knew that baby was mine. No," Jim shook his head. "That wasn't a mistake. It was deliberate, intentional, and downright cruel. I've been a father for two days and I could never do that to
my own child."
Gerry couldn't look at Jim's eyes.
"You were going to keep me from my own daughter." Jim paused for a brief moment to suppress his rage, but it was without success. "She's your grandchild for God's sake! This baby," Jim said, walking to the front of the desk and pointing to the picture, "She's part of you too."
Gerry rested his head on his hand, defeated, looking at the picture. He kneaded his temples as a massive headache throbbed inside his head. "She looks like you, you know? Your mom thinks so too. I think that's the main reason she's been so doting with her."
"Were you ever planning on telling me?"
"I thought she'd moved on. You'd moved on..."
The underlining truth in that statement hurt Jim more than anything else. "In other words, you were never going to tell me."
"Jimmy, I was wrong," Gerry finally admitted with a heavy gush of air. "What else can I say?"
"There's nothing you can say." Jim ran his fingers over his face and looked at Gerry straight in the eye, seeing something he never seen it before: fear. "I almost lost my child. Now feel what it's like to lose yours."
Gerry closed his eyes and his have face screwed tight with pain.
Jim stormed out of the study and out of the house. He didn't look back. The goal of that conversation was to make his father acknowledge what he had done, to admit he was wrong. He wanted Gerry to see the extent of his actions and feel the sagging load of the consequences over his shoulders.
Back at the hotel, Jim let the shower pummel him, lowering the temperature gradually until it was cold enough to put life back into his body, wake up his brain. Going on 48 hours without sleep was catching up to him. He shut the water off and tugged at a white towel. He dressed and began pacing around the room, frantically, straightening and tightening—needing to do something, anything, but stand still.
When the room's phone rang, Jim spun towards it and clumsily picked up the receiver on the first ring, almost dropping it in the process.
"H-Hello?"
It was a woman's voice talking on the other end. "Mr. Halpert, are you expecting a Pam Beesly?"
"Y-Yes, I am." A shudder of relief rippled through him. She had come. "I'll be down in a minute."
Jim immediately sprinted down to the lobby, taking the stairs two steps at a time. When he finally caught a glimpse of her, he stopped to catch his breath, thinking he'd never been so happy to see her. He took slow steps towards the reception area until he was able to greet her without sounding like he'd just run a marathon.
"Hey," he said.
Pam's head quickly turned towards his voice. "Hi," she said meekly, watching him walk towards her.
She took a few hesitant steps towards him, but stopped, as if restrained by her own legs. Pam looked down and Jim followed her gaze. It was only then that Jim noticed a blanket-covered car seat resting by her feet.
She brought Cecelia.
Pam watched as the expression on his face shifted, going from anxious to happy. She went to grab the handle, but Jim quickly offered to do so. "Let me," he said. Pam nodded and he lifted the car seat off the floor with an involuntary gush of air.
"It's heavier than you think," Pam warned.
"Yeah…" Jim said, carefully holding the car seat as if it was a basket of eggs. "What have you been feeding her?"
"You know, the house special," Pam said.
Jim smiled and looked at her. The corner of her mouth curled up just so.
A smile.
Hardly there.
But there.
Pam didn't have to do anything to get his heart racing, the sheer fact that she was standing next to him was enough.
Although he hadn't seen her in almost nine months, the same feelings he'd felt for her were still there, untouched, burning with the same intensity it did all those months ago - being in love with a girl like Pam was without a doubt the most effortless thing that had ever happened to him. Even before he'd kissed, hugged and taken her on a date, or done any of the things that he normally did with girls, he'd known he was in love.
"Umm… My room is just upstairs, but if you want we can go to a restaurant or we could go—"
"The room is fine," Pam replied sheepishly.
"Okay," Jim said and smiled.
Once they were up and in front of Jim's hotel room, he placed the car seat on the floor and fished out the door key from his pocket. He opened the door, and held it open for Pam. She flashed an appreciative smile, but he could see caution with every move she made. Jim watched her eyes linger on the car seat as she hesitated walking inside.
"Take her," Jim said knowing Pam was aching to do so.
She strained a smiled, grabbed the handle, and walked inside. "This is a really nice hotel," she said.
"Yeah," Jim agreed, watching her ease the car seat on the floor. His fingers were itching to remove the blanket covering it. "May I?" He said, dropping to his knees in front of the car seat, grasping the edge of the pink blanket.
"Um… sure."
Pam held her breath as she watched him slowly pulled the blanket off, revealing the small baby girl, cozily asleep inside. Her little head was slightly tilted to the side and her pink lips puckered out. Dark eyelashes curled against rosy cheeks, and her round little head had a pink headband, over the few wisps of fine blond hair.
A smile immediately pulled at the corners of his mouth. "She's so beautiful," Jim said in awe. His eyes held a world of emotions that Pam had never thought to see.
"Yeah." Pam's breath hitched in her chest and tears gathered in her eyes. God, over the past week, she imagined telling Jim about Cece, but somehow she'd never allowed herself to think about him actually meeting her. Watching his gentle care with their baby made her heart weep and every emotion inside of her came rushing to the surface. There was something so tender, so poignant about this moment, that Pam's throat felt too tight to let air pass.
"Are you hungry?" Jim asked, pulling her out of her stupor. He wasn't looking at her, still not tearing his gaze from the tiny baby who had him so enthralled.
When she thought she could speak without hearing her voice break, she said, "N-No… I had a snack before I came."
Jim smiled and took a few steps towards her. "Here," he said, gesturing towards her coat. "I can take that," he said and pulled the coat off her shoulders.
"Thank you."
Jim placed her coat in the closet and returned to gaze at a still sleeping Cece.
"You can hold her if you want."
Jim's eyes brightened like that of a kid who had just been offered a year supply of candy. "Really?"
"Yeah."
Jim pushed the protector down and slowly unbuckled Cecelia, freeing her arms carefully from the straps. Once she was released he gently scooped her out of the seat. Cece's warmth immediately radiated through him.
"Hold her close to you," Pam said, helping Jim settle her against his chest, taking his arm, moving it so that it was firmly beneath the baby. "Like this. So that she feels safe."
It was hard to hide the tears surging from the back of his eyes. He tried blinking them away, but was unsuccessful.
"Sorry," he said, unsure why he was apologizing. "It's just…" Jim let the sentence linger hoping Pam would understand him.
"I know," she said.
Jim moved to the couch with careful ease, so as not to awake Cece, and motioned for Pam to take a seat as well. She sat on the bed across from him, watching him nestle Cece cozily over his chest. He rubbed her tiny back with a tenderness that sliced her heart open.
Jim drew in a breath and his serious green eyes captured Pam's.
**To Be Continued***