The Odds of You and Me

by Cecilia Galante

  “He started to stay something, but he didn’t get to finish. It was like someone threw a match inside a bowl of gasoline. I just erupted.” James leans his head back against the wall. His eyelids are so heavy now as to be almost closed, his mouth slack and drawn. “It was terrible. Like choking the life out of a puppy. Even before they pulled me off him, I knew I’d gone too far. He was just . . . laying there, so still. I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. I hadn’t meant to take it to that level. Shit, I didn’t even know I was capable of inflicting that kind of damage on anyone. It was just . . . everything. Him, what he’d done to you. Getting away with it. My father. Not being able to forgive him. All of it.” He lifts his eyes, searching mine for a moment, and then drops them again. “So. You asked what happened that night in the bar. That’s what happened.”

  A long, silent moment passes. The faint scent of incense lingers in the air.

  “And now you’re here.” My voice is a whisper.

  He nods, rubs the side of his neck. “If you want to go, I understand.”

  My brain is whirling with the new information I’ve just been given, but it’s not lingering on the details about Charlie. It’s stuck on James, walking miles and miles in the bitter cold every night with freezing feet and no hair. With a broken heart and no one to give it to.

  “I probably should.” I reach out slowly, put my hand over his. “Except that I want to tell you something first.” I move in closer, until my leg is barely touching his. An old longing winds its way through me like a plant tendril searching for light; I have to struggle not to cup the edge of his jaw in my palm, to keep my face away from his. The faint traces of lavender and urine hover in the air, the barely there scent of peroxide. Through the dark, only the outline of his lips is visible—the slight wave formation along the upper one, like a small W, above the rise and swell of the larger bottom one.

  “Maybe you showing up every day and quizzing your father on those facts was a way of forgiving him. Even if you didn’t know it at the time.” I take my index finger, run it gently around the edge of his lips, then duck my head, brushing my cheek against his. His skin feels like a petal, the heat coming from inside his mouth a tiny furnace. I lift my head again, gaze at his scar, trace the scythe-like shape of it with my index finger. “And maybe him asking you for your help was his way of apologizing. Even if he didn’t know it at the time either.”

  James looks at me for so long that I swear I can see a flurry of thoughts moving around behind his eyes, tiny birds flying high in some nameless sky, their feathery wings beating against the pull of the wind. The only thing that moves is his breathing, which sounds ragged around the edges, as if something has torn inside. “Maybe you’re right,” he whispers finally. “I never thought of it like that.”

  This time when I touch his face, I use my lips, retracing my steps between the space of his eyebrows, then farther down along his nose where the skin is ridged and puckered, and finally against his cheek where the scar ends. A muscle pulses along his jawline as I hover there, my lips barely touching his skin, and then he turns, pressing his mouth against mine. His lips are dry, rough, almost metallic tasting. I hesitate, but James leans into me, cupping the back of my head with his hand. He kisses me hard, insistently, but edged now with something that tastes like terror. Or maybe the terror is mine. I start to pull away, but he reaches up with his other hand and caresses my cheek with his knuckles.

  I study him for a moment, the small specks of gold inside the green of his eyes, the burst of black inside the pupil. And then I lean in. We kiss and kiss and there is nothing in the world that exists in that moment but this. His tongue is gentle against mine, his lips like warm sponges now against the planes of my face, the wide space of my forehead. He takes his thumbs at one point and, cupping my face in the rest of his hands, draws them around the edge of my hairline. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers. “God, I’ve always thought you were so beautiful.”

  I wrap both of my arms around his head as he leans into my chest, bury my nose against the stubbly growth of hair along his skull. His skin smells faintly of salt; the tiny hairs are rough against my skin. “Do you remember what you told me that day just before you kissed me on the step?”

  “That you smelled like rain,” James murmurs.

  “Rain after a long stretch of hot, dry weather.” I kiss the top of his head, lower my face until it is in front of his. “Do you know what that’s called?”

  James kisses the tip of my nose. “Is there really a term for it?”

  “There is. I looked it up that night.”

  “You did?” His eyes light up. “What’s it called?”

  “Petrichor,” I answer. “‘Petra’ from the Greek, meaning ‘stone,’ and ‘ichor,’ which is what they called the fluid that flowed through the veins of the gods.”

  “Petrichor,” James says slowly. “The veins of God. I never knew that.” He kisses me again. “But then I never knew anything until I met you.”

  I kiss him again and pull back, my lips lingering against his. “Actually, I think I like your definition better.”

  “My definition?”

  “Relief,” I remind him. “Liberation.”

  His lips curve into a smile and he nods, pressing his cheek against mine. “Yes,” he whispers. “Yes, I have to agree.”

  Chapter 30

  The air outside is cool against my face, a sudden breath. I’m sweating a little under my shirt; the back of my neck is damp. I hadn’t realized how warm it could get upstairs, how quickly dead air collected, as if trapped in a bottleneck. It’s well after midnight, the sky above newly strung with stars. I’d gotten up finally, when James insisted I leave, his finger lingering along my eyebrow. “People will worry,” he said. “The ones who shouldn’t. Go home and get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Large forsythia bushes have started blooming by the front stairs; in front of them are the tulip plants pushing their way out of the dark earth, their buds still swollen tight. I get in the car, start the engine, think briefly of Mr. Herron’s tangerine parfaits. The streets are empty at this hour, deserted as a Sunday afternoon. I drive slowly, my fingers barely touching the wheel. I feel the way I do when I have drunk too much beer—outside of myself, fuzzy around the edges. My skin is hot to the touch and my fingers are trembling. At a stop sign, I close my eyes, remembering his mouth against mine, the way he lingered over the edge of my jaw, buried his face in the hollow of my neck. The way he’d said I was beautiful. The way he’d looked when he said I was beautiful, as if all the facts and statistics he’d given me over the years were nothing if I would only believe this.

  Me, beautiful!

  I tip my head back against the seat, holding the novelty of it in my chest. It’s big and warm and like nothing else I’ve ever felt before in my life. I’m afraid to move, as if doing so might disturb it, a pebble thrown into still water. But I know I have to get home. I have rooms to clean, beds to make, laundry to wash. A child to hold.

  After a long time, I open my eyes again and step on the gas.

  THE HOUSE IS dark when I let myself in finally, drained and bleary-eyed. The light in the living room is still on, the curtains open. I am hanging up my coat when my name floats softly down the steps: “Bird?”

  “Yeah, Ma. It’s me.”

  She appears in the hallway, dressed in her flannel nightgown with the pink wildflower print and her big purple slippers. Her hair is askew—flat on one side, still puffed and teased on the other—and the hollows under her eyes are as large as quarters. “What time is it?”

  I shrug, glance down at my watch: 1:10. “Late.”

  “Where were you?” Ma asks. “You haven’t been talking to Father Delaney all this time, have you?”

  “No. I was just driving around.”

  “Driving around?” Ma repeats. “What does that mean?”

  “It means exactly what you think it means, Ma. I was in the car, driving around the neighborhood.”

/>   “Just wasting gas?” Ma presses. “Jeez, Bernadette. Gas is so expensive now. What’s the point of that?”

  “I needed to think.” I head up the steps, past my senior year portrait that Ma still keeps on the wall, and pause for a moment, struggling to recognize anything inside the vacant expression and dimmed eyes. I lean in closer. It’s my reflection I’m staring at, the eyes looking back at me now that I don’t recognize.

  “What’d you have to think about for so long?” Ma whispers the question. And then more vehemently: “Bernadette. Do you have to speak to me with your back turned?”

  I whirl around then, glaring, ready to tear into her. Except that the expression on her face is so full of worry, so etched with concern, that I feel everything inside start to drain out of me, a slow leak. And then I am crying, hard, something that has come from a dark corner, a sudden, forceful release of feeling. It surges out with such intensity that my legs give out beneath me; I am seated on the step, leaning against the wall, weeping as though I have just learned how to do such a thing, the sounds coming out of my mouth a language all their own.

  MA HELPS ME back down the steps, shushing me softly, steering me toward the kitchen table under one arm. She lets me cry as she busies herself around the kitchen, putting a flame under the copper kettle, taking out two mugs, arranging tea bags neatly inside each one. She fills the sugar bowl and then the creamer, and takes out a package of butter cookies, fanning six of them on a small saucer. When the kettle whistles, she pours the boiling water into the mugs, sets one in front of each of us. Then she folds her hands. Sits forward. “All right now,” she says. “Tell me.”

  I reach down and pick up the string of my tea bag. “Ma. I really need you to listen to me.” My voice is cracking. I clear my throat, pull a tissue out of the box on the table, and blow my nose.

  “I’m right here, Bernadette.” Ma takes a bite of cookie, dabs the corner of her mouth with her ring finger. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s about the day I got pregnant.”

  Her whole face tightens, first with confusion, then with alarm, a sudden defense, as if someone has just pulled a fire alarm. She blinks once, twice. Picks up her teaspoon and fills it with sugar. Both of us watch the granules pour from her spoon, white sand dissolving in a tiny, scalding ocean. “Oh, Bernadette,” she says finally. “I really don’t think it’s necessary to get into—”

  “Ma.” I wait until she looks at me. “I didn’t just get pregnant. I was raped.”

  She stares at me without saying anything, the cookie frozen in her hand. Outside the house, the swish of tires rolls by along the street; a bird cries in the distance.

  “Who?” she says finally.

  I bite my lip, stare down into my teacup, wish I could somehow immerse myself beneath the dark liquid. “Charlie.”

  “Charlie?” She sits back in her chair, another blow. “But you . . . you were dating Charlie. You told me you were . . . with him.”

  “I know, Ma.”

  “So how could he—”

  “He just did. He pushed his way into my apartment one night, and”—I bite the inside of my cheek so hard that I can taste blood—“he just did, okay?”

  “Bernadette.” Ma leans forward, her head tilted a little to one side. “Are you sure that’s what happened?”

  “Am I sure?”

  “Yes. Are you sure?” She is floundering now, having been dragged into some kind of strange territory that she does not know the way out of, but refusing to admit it. “I mean, back then you were drinking and carousing, and . . .”

  “And what? Drinking and carousing gives someone a license to rape me?”

  She rests her elbow heavily on the table, brings her fingers to her forehead. “Well, of course not. But . . .”

  I am trying to think logically. I am trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. I know she has a right to question my choices back then. The few times she came to my apartment, she’d seen the bottles of booze, the crushed joint in the seashell ashtray. Still, alluding to that behavior of mine right now as a justification for Charlie raping me hurts so much that I have to reach down and grab hold of the chair I am sitting on so that I don’t take a swing at her.

  Suddenly Ma lifts her downcast eyes. “What did Father Delaney say about all of this?”

  “Father Delaney?” I run my tongue over my bottom lip. “I didn’t talk to him about this.”

  She arches her back, raises an eyebrow. “But I thought that’s why you said you wanted to stay later. To talk to him.”

  “Ma, I wouldn’t talk to Father Delaney—or any priest—about that night if you paid me a million bucks.” I drain the last of my tea, even though it’s scalding, and set my cup back down on the table. A numbing sensation fades from the middle of my tongue, followed by an immediate stab of heat, which pools and then settles like a lily pad along the rough surface.

  “Now why would you go say something like that?” Ma looks as if I’ve punched her in the gut.

  “You want to know why?” I pull my chair in a little closer to the table, lean on both elbows. “Because Father Delaney would say the same bullshit about it as he did at Dad’s funeral. That God was right there next to me the whole time. And I don’t want to hear it—or anything about God—ever again.”

  “Father Delaney’s words are not bullshit,” Ma says, whispering the last word. “And don’t you speak of God like—”

  “You know what, Ma? Fuck! God! If He thinks it’s enough to sit next to someone and hold their hand while their brains are being splashed against a windshield, then fuck Him! If He thinks He’s got it covered, whispering in my ear while some guy holds my arms down and shoves his dick into me, then fuck Him, again! Okay, Ma? Do you hear what I’m saying? Do you?”

  Ma claps her hands over her ears, squeezes her eyes shut. She’s moaning a little, swaying side to side. Then she stops. Opens her eyes. They are piercing. “I want you out, Bernadette.” Her voice is shaking. “You can leave Angus here with me until you move in at the lake, but I want you out by tomorrow. You are not welcome here any longer.”

  “I’ve never been welcome here.” I grab the cow-shaped saltshaker off the table, clench it tight in one fist. “It’ll be my pleasure to leave.”

  The shaker goes hurtling out of my hand, smashing against the wall and splintering into four small pieces before crashing to the floor. I turn to leave but not before noticing the severed cow head as it skitters into one corner and then rolls to a stop, one lone eye staring up at Ma.

  Chapter 31

  Upstairs, I pause outside of Angus’s room, stare at the back of his sleeping head, waiting, I guess, to start crying again, or even for my eyes to fill up, but nothing comes. It’s as if a stone has planted itself in the middle of my chest, a weight of enormous proportions siphoning off my breath. I slump against the doorframe, realizing suddenly just how long I’ve been waiting to tell Ma what happened that night, and how long I’ve deluded myself into thinking that she would find a way to be kind or maybe even compassionate about it when I finally did. I’d come close only once before, when Angus was just a few months old. He’d been in the middle of a crying jag, a prolonged period of bitter wailing that went on for over three hours. I’d already checked all the basics; he was not hungry, he was not wet or dirty, and he was not, as far as I could tell, in any physical pain. Desperate, I put him in a warm tub, the water momentarily startling him into silence, and pulled him out again as he reclenched his fists, arched his tiny back, and screamed even more furiously. I swaddled him burrito-style, the way the nurse at the hospital had shown me, and unwrapped him again as his face turned scarlet with rage.

  “What?” I cried helplessly, sinking down on the bed next to him. “What do you want?” His doll-like limbs, fingers and toes so small as to be almost imaginary, jerked at the sound of my voice, and as I watched him holler anew, it occurred to me that maybe he was just very, very angry, that somehow far back in the crevices of his baby brain, he knew exactly how h
e had been brought into this world and it did not sit right with him. A swell of my own rage followed, and I got up on my knees, glaring down at him. “Yeah, well, guess what, buddy? I’m pissed off, too. I didn’t ask for this to happen. I didn’t want any of this shit, including you.” I could barely get the last few words out; they stuck in my throat like burrs, and I choked on them, realizing how much I actually meant them. The truth in that moment was that I didn’t want anything to do with him ever again. He was the product of the single worst night of my life, forced into me against my will. His DNA was meticulously and miraculously half mine—and half Charlie’s. Charlie, who had grabbed me around the face and twisted my arm behind my back and dug his knees into my elbows so hard I thought they might snap like dry tree branches. Charlie, who’d told me to say “please,” whose eyes had turned black above me, who tore my underpants to shreds. Charlie, who’d taunted me when I begged him to stop. Charlie, who pinned me, helpless as a child, beneath the weight of him and violated me. Again and again and again.

  I still don’t know why the screams coming out of Angus shifted abruptly just then. And there is no way to comprehend how or why they seemed to move from a place of anger to one of deep sorrow, almost as if he knew that nothing in this world could ease it. They went on and on, an endless, forlorn sobbing, and as I recognized my own voice within them, I fell to the floor and wept. I needed my mother. I needed to tell her what had happened to me, and why, because of my shame, I had denied it ever happening, even to myself. I needed her arms around me and her soft voice in my ear, assuring me that I was not to blame and that no matter how ugly the details surrounding his existence, Angus was still mine, that I could still love him if only because of that fact.