Pascal's Wager

by Nancy Rue

  “I didn’t mean to get in your face,” he said.

  “Get in my face?” I said. “You tried to crawl inside my brain. I really didn’t want this. I just wanted some…knowledge to help me make a decision. Suddenly, I’m in the middle of psychotherapy. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want it. This was a huge mistake, and I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time.”

  I hadn’t meant to get that carried away, and now the only thing I could do was leave. I scraped the chair back, colliding with a student’s tray and splashing the soup of the day down the front of his shirt.

  “Sorry,” I said to him. “Sorry.”

  He gave me a disgruntled nod and moved off toward another table. I looked back at Sam, who was by now standing up.

  “Look at me,” I said. “I’m a mess! I was handling things better before!”

  “I’m sorry—”

  I turned to leave, this time checking for oncoming traffic first. I felt a warm hand on my arm.

  “Jill, don’t go,” Sam said.

  I looked down at his fingers, but he didn’t let go.

  “Let me at least walk you back,” he said. “Let’s not leave it like this.” He let go of my arm and followed me down the steps.

  “I accept your apology,” I said. I stopped several yards from the steps and faced him. I was beginning to sag. “Look, Blaze, I admit it’s really hard for me not to like you. But I feel like you’re pushing me.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. But his eyes were light. “Still, I have to push it just a little further.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed. “Go ahead.”

  “I know you’re unhappy,” Sam said, “and now you know you’re unhappy, and it stinks. But at least now you’re being reasonable because you’re seeing things as they really are. And isn’t that what you value the most—your intelligence?”

  I slowly shook my head. “You are the most infuriating human being I have ever known. The other day being reasonable was bunk, and now you’re congratulating me for it.”

  “I never said being reasonable was bunk. I said you can’t base absolutely everything on reason. You have to use your heart in some cases—and now we know you have one, because it’s spitting nails!”

  His eyes were alive.

  I was trying not to smile. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? You are getting a big kick out of proving to me that I’m miserable.”

  “I’m not enjoying it, but it’s satisfying to see that you’re sane.”

  “Was there some doubt about that?”

  “You’d call yourself an atheist, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “A happy atheist is either a liar, a fool, or a nut case. You are now none of those.”

  I motioned in the direction I’d been walking, and Sam nodded. He fell into step beside me, and I continued in a calmer voice.

  “I tell you what,” I said, “if I go home this afternoon and my mother is completely cured of Pick’s Disease, I’ll believe in God.”

  Sam was quiet for a minute. I sneaked a sideways glance at him. Was he stuck? I felt strangely disappointed.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” he said finally. “Not on that alone. A miracle would convince your mind, but if you’re determined not to believe in your heart, you’ll figure out a way to discredit it.”

  By then we’d reached the patio just off the back door to Sloan. I dropped to the bench, and Sam propped his foot up on it.

  “I’m going to give you a list of phrases,” he said. ‘“Invite Jesus into your heart.’ ‘Repent and be saved.’ ‘Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.’ ‘Let go and let God.’” He cocked his head at me. “Any of those mean anything to you right now?”

  “No. They’re clichés. I can turn on any religious station and hear them coming out of the mouth of some TV evangelist before the next commercial.”

  “Exactly. Subtract the heart knowledge, and that’s all you have left. A bunch of platitudes that set your teeth on edge.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “You’re peeved at me for making all this too much about you, and I might have pushed you too much. I’m sincere when I say I’m sorry.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “But if you really want answers about your mother, they have to be answers about you, too. You can’t know what’s going on with her, but you can know what’s going on with you, and that’s going to lead you to the right place.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  He paused a second, and then sat down beside me.

  “Because I’ve lived it. That’s all I can tell you. Have I used a single one of those catchphrases on you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I never will. But I can give you options, and you can feel for yourself. From here on, it’s just options. No more psychoanalyzing.”

  “Then be honest with me,” I said. “You’re trying to convert me, aren’t you?”

  He widened his eyes innocently. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because otherwise, why would you be persisting?”

  He grinned. “Am I the one who’s persisting? I thought it was you.”

  His arm came around me and pulled me into him as he laughed into my hair. I let it go just long enough to feel the warmth before I pulled away.

  Sam was straight-faced, but he couldn’t disguise the smile in his eyes. “You know, I really should pattern myself more after Pascal. Did you know—”

  “If its about Blaze, I’m sure I didn’t know,” I said. “I doubt the man ever actually existed.”

  “No, I’m serious. He was so on fire with the idea that he shouldn’t cause another person to sin that he actually wore a belt with steel points on it to keep people from getting too close to him.”

  “No, he did not.”

  “Would I lie to you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  He grinned at me, and I had to grin back. I found myself leaning toward him.

  Then I stood up. “Just give me some time to process all this. If I feel like I need to, I’ll call you and we can talk some more.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” He stood up, too. “Thanks for the lunch.” Then he sauntered off, lanky arms dangling comfortably at his sides. He hadn’t tried to hug me again.

  And I’d wanted him to.

  No, I told myself sternly You cannot go there. I might not be able to control a lot of other things in my life, but I could control that.

  It was a good try. I don’t know that I was entirely persuaded.

  I wasn’t in my office ten seconds when Deb poked her head in. “You got a minute?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  She closed the door behind her, and when she turned back to face me, I could see she was struggling. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to pop those contact lenses right out. “What’s up?” I said.

  “Did you get that memo about office hours?”

  “I did,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  She plopped down in the chair and tapped her lips with her finger. “Look, Jill, there’s talk. I’ve tried to defend you and tell everybody it’s because your mother’s recovering from an accident—”

  “What exactly are you defending me from?” I said.

  “People talking about how you’re never here anymore. How you don’t hang out with anybody. You dash out the door after class like there’s somebody chasing you.” She lowered her voice as if the place were bugged. “It’s going to get back to Dr. Ferguson. I mean, he is the head of the department, Jill. You don’t want that.”

  As a matter of fact, I didn’t.

  “Thanks, Deb,” I said. “But don’t worry about defending me. I’ll get it worked out.”

  “It’s just that you work so hard. Who wants to see all that go down the drain?”

  Certainly not me. The minute she was gone, I marched upstairs to Nigel’s office.

  “I won’t take up much of your time,” I said as I closed his door behind
me. “I just want to know one thing: Is there a problem with my performance around here?”

  “Why don’t you sit down, Jill?”

  “Because it can’t take that long to give me a yes or no answer!” I said—a little too forcefully.

  And then I stopped. I had a flash of my mother, standing in front of me in the kitchen, finger pointed at my face as she told me just how it was going to be. Whoa. Where had that come from?

  I sank into the chair. “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re under a great deal of strain.”

  “That’s no excuse. I’m sorry.” I wanted to look at him and say, “Am I always this way? Have I turned into Elizabeth McGavock?” But I raked my hair instead. I suddenly didn’t care if he thought I was stressed out or not. Hadn’t I just made that painfully apparent anyway?

  “Dr. Ferguson did remark to me that it appeared you were out of the building more frequently than you have been known to be in the past,” Nigel said.

  “How would he know that? Am I supposed to be punching a time clock? Sorry—”

  “I’m not sure how Dr. Ferguson got his information,” Nigel said, “and I assured him that you are fulfilling all of your requirements and then some. However, he did ask me to make certain that you knew how many office hours you were supposed to be keeping.”

  “He did that himself,” I said. “Via a memo.”

  “And are you maintaining your office hours?”

  I nodded, but the reassurances I would normally have given him in no uncertain terms didn’t even make it to my lips.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can do it, though,” I said. “My mother is requiring a lot more care than I anticipated, and although I’m exploring other options for her, it’s going to take some time.”

  “Then you take some time, Jill.”

  “On top of Dr. Ferguson’s comments? I don’t think so.”

  “Keep your office hours, teach your class, do what you absolutely have to do here in this building, and do the rest of your work at home. Work on your research there, your class preparations. Those don’t require your physical presence.”

  “Isn’t that going to raise some eyebrows?”

  “I will take care of the eyebrows. If I thought there was any reason for them to be raising in the first place, don’t you think I would have come to you?”

  I looked at him. He would have. He was a decent human being. It was as if I were seeing that for the first time.

  “Just let the ladies at the front desk know where you’re going to be in case we need to reach you, then go and be with your mother,” Nigel said. “Go.”

  It was as close to an order as anything he had ever given me. I left dutifully. But somehow, the chord was still unresolved.

  Freda III looked surprised to see me when I walked in the front door at one-thirty in the afternoon. She and Mother were sitting in the den with the television on, deep in the throes of The Bold and the Beautiful—or at least Freda was. Mother appeared to be dozing while sitting straight up.

  I set up my stuff in Mother’s study and left the door open a crack, although the argument some couple was having about whose baby was whose made it slightly more difficult to concentrate on K-theory. I was about to go ask Freda to turn the volume down when the phone rang. I snatched it up.

  “McGavock residence,” I said. “This is Jill.”

  “I’m so glad it’s you,” a husky timid voice said. “When they gave me this number, they said it was your home phone, but I was afraid somebody else was going to answer and then it would be like I was bothering them and—”

  “Tabitha?” I said.

  “Uh-huh. Is this okay?”

  “Where did you get this number?”

  “They gave it to me at the math department. I didn’t ask for it. I just asked them if they knew where you were, and they gave it to me. Is it okay that I called?”

  I reined in my bark. “Yes. What do you need?”

  “Some extra help. I don’t understand this new stuff at all, and I’m starting to feel like I did at the beginning of the quarter, and—”

  “Jill! Jill, help! Come here! Quick!”

  It was Freda III, squalling from the den. There was an edge in her voice that went right up my spine.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  I dropped the phone on the desk and ran.

  THIRTEEN

  I careened around the corner into the den just in time to see a rather macabre sight.

  Freda III was in a half-reclining position at one end of the couch. My mother, on all fours, had her pinned down like a large cat, and she had one of Freda’s eyelids lifted with her finger and appeared to be peering intently into it.

  “Get her off me!” Freda III screamed.

  Her cry went up my backbone, but it didn’t even faze Mother. She was moving methodically to the other eyelid.

  “Make her stop!”

  “Mother!” I snapped. “Get off her! Come on!”

  I took Mother by both shoulders from behind, but I couldn’t budge her. For a petite thing, she was wiry—like a deceivingly strong wrestler in the flyweight division.

  “You push while I pull,” I said to Freda III.

  She did, but even at that it took several attempts before Mother finally let go, sending the two of us tumbling backward off the couch with her on top of me. I rolled her off and scrambled up to check out Freda III’s condition. Mother wandered wordlessly to the TV and turned up the volume.

  “Are you okay?” I shouted.

  “I don’t know,” Freda shouted back.

  She sat up and brushed at the sleeves of her sweater as if Mother had deposited lice on her.

  “What happened?” I said. I picked up the remote and muted the TV. Mother just blinked at me.

  “We were just watching our show,” Freda III said, “and she nodded off and I guess I did, too. There wasn’t that much interesting happening on there today—”

  “What happened?” I said.

  “I woke up and she was on top of me, just like you saw her, pulling up my eyelid and staring in there like she was looking for something!”

  “Did she hurt you?” I asked.

  “No, but she scared the daylights out of me. What the devil do you think got into her?”

  “Equal and reactive.”

  Freda III and I stared at each other. Those words had come from my mother.

  I whipped my head around. “Did you say something, Mother?”

  She just put her hand over her mouth and giggled.

  “She thinks it’s funny,” Freda III said. “She’s losing all sense of judgment now. She’s really failing fast—”

  “Why don’t you go in the kitchen and put on a pot of tea?” I said. “I’ll talk to her.”

  Freda III patted my arm and shook her head. “When are you seeing that social worker?”

  “Why?” I said.

  “Because I think it’s time to consider other arrangements.”

  “Make sure you use the caffeinated tea,” I said. “No sugar in mine.”

  When she was gone, I turned the TV off altogether and squatted in front of Mother’s chair. She had stopped giggling and had returned to her usual flat expression.

  “You were looking at her pupils?” I said. “Why?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You just talked, Mother. We both heard you. You can still do it. Why won’t you just talk to me?” She did nothing but blink.

  “You want to look at my pupils?” I leaned close. “Go ahead. Peel these babies back. Tell me what you see.”

  This time she shook her head, and I rocked back on my heels. There was no way I could know what was happening in her head, and Sam was right. I was terrified.

  Max came over to cook dinner about four o’clock, and we let Freda III go home early.

  “I hope she comes back tomorrow,” I said to Max. I joined him at the sink, where he was pulling the tentacles off some poor former sea creature. “What is that?”


  “Squid,” he said.

  “What are you doing to it?”

  “Cleaning it. They’ll clean it for you at the fish market, but they never do a thorough job—and heaven forbid I should bring any more germs into this house. My mama, she’s the one who taught me how to clean squid.” He stopped and looked at me. “Why wouldn’t she come back tomorrow?”

  I stepped away from the sink and went for the sack of fresh peas on the table. One more moment of squid cleaning and I was going to gag. In fact, everything was making me want to throw up.

  “Tell me she didn’t bring in crystals, too,” Max said. “She did, didn’t she?”

  “No,” I said, and then I gave him a rundown on that afternoon’s episode.

  When I was through, Max laid a paper towel over the wet mess on the counter and came to the table where I was shelling peas. He moved them away from me and took my hands. The odor of raw seafood was nauseating.

  “Jill,” he said, “maybe we’ve made a mistake. Do you think?”

  “What—hiring Freda? Max, I didn’t have many good options.”

  “No, I mean trying to keep Liz here.”

  “You were the one who talked me into it.”

  “I know, I know, heaven forgive me. I just couldn’t stand the thought of somebody else taking care of her. Who was going to make her calamari the way she likes it? Who was going to buy fresh squid and clean it right there in the sink?”

  “Oh, I’d say nobody.”

  “There’s more to it than squid—”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  Max’s deep, dark eyes looked absolutely tragic. “I’m not kidding with you, Jill. I think maybe it’s not safe here for her—for anybody. I think I was wrong.”

  “So you’re saying put her in a home?”

  “Am I saying that? I don’t know what I’m saying!”

  Max pulled his bear of a body out of the chair and lugged it back to the sink, where he leaned over the squid with his back to me.

  I stayed in the chair, staring miserably at the unshelled peas, having yet another epiphany—about my fourth of the day.

  “Max,” I said. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  He moaned as if he were in physical pain. “I’ve been in love with her since the first day I saw her. I settled for a friendship—that was all she would have—but I never stopped. Not from here.” He pounded a fist on his chest.