The Odds of You and Me

by Cecilia Galante

  I nod slowly. “I do.”

  Father Delaney smiles. “Then if you believe in love, you believe in God. They’re the same thing.”

  I stare at him disbelievingly. It’s so simple as to be ridiculous. So small as to be miraculous. So factual as to make perfect sense, just like the oxygen a heart needs to continue beating outside the body.

  I CAN’T SLEEP at all the night before the hearing. Mrs. Ross has called twice, to go over things with me, but it hasn’t done anything to ease my anxiety. For all I know, I could be going behind bars tomorrow—for a long time. Now, I hold Angus close beneath the covers, slip my fingers through his silky hair. We’re watching E.T. on the television—for probably the eighth time—and eating popcorn. It’s the end of the movie, where E.T. and Elliott have to say goodbye, and Angus is riveted. Even the popcorn, which he has up until this point been stuffing voraciously into his mouth, is forgotten to one side. A figure appears in the spaceship, the strange shape glowing in the doorway, and Angus says immediately, the way he always does, “That’s E.T.’s mommy.”

  I think how amazing it is that he thinks such a thing without any hesitation. The figure could be anyone: E.T.’s brother, a sister, an aunt, an uncle. But it makes the most sense to Angus that it is E.T.’s mother standing there, come back to get him after so much time away, and when the plaintive, honking sound comes out of the figure’s mouth, calling for E.T., I look at him again, in wonder.

  After the movie, while we are lying in bed talking, I gaze at his features, as if trying to memorize them. Which, for all I know, I might have to do. I haven’t even broached the topic of Angus coming to visit me in prison, but even if it’s allowed, I don’t know if I want him to. What would that do to him, going to see his mother behind bars? How much further back would that set him?

  “Hey, Boo,” I say. “Can I ask you a question before you go to sleep?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Remember those magic sneakers you used to love wearing all the time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why’d you stop wearing them?”

  “I told you,” Angus says. “They don’t work anymore.”

  “What do you mean? You can’t jump in them anymore? They don’t help you run?”

  “Yeah.” Angus scowls. “And they’re dumb.”

  “Why’re they dumb?”

  “They just are. They didn’t really do anything.”

  “Because Jeremy said they didn’t? Or because you think they didn’t?”

  Angus wrinkles his nose. He rolls over so that his back is facing me, shoves a piece of hair out of his eyes. “I’m going to sleep.”

  I tuck an elbow behind my head, watch the shadows sift lightly across the wall. Behind the curtains, the shy eye of a half-moon looks in on us; stars wink like a handful of scattered diamonds.

  “I don’t like Jeremy very much.” Angus’s voice is very small.

  “No?”

  “He’s not a good friend. He makes me feel bad. A lot.”

  His little voice quivers on the last word, and I lean over just as he starts to cry, and wrap my arms around him. “I love my magic sneakers,” he says after a moment, pushing me away. “And I miss them, too.”

  “I bet they miss you.” I fling the covers back. “Let’s go get them. Right now. You can put them on and wear them while you sleep.”

  “In bed?” Angus sits up, his tears forgotten.

  “In bed,” I say. “All the time if you want.”

  “Forever?”

  I nod. “Forever, Boo. Forever and ever.”

  I GET UP early, before the sun rises, and head downstairs to put some coffee on. I don’t know what coffee is going to do, except make me even more jittery than I already am, but I’ve got to do something to kill time. Ma’s sitting in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, wrapping the tea bag string around the tea bag, squeezing every last drop into her cup. The exhaustion on her face is visible, the muscles limp beneath her papery skin. She blinks when I come in, sets her spoon down on the table next to her.

  “Can’t sleep either?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, rubs a thumb along the inverted part of the spoon until it makes a squeaking sound.

  I take out the tin of coffee and the filters, insert one into the coffeemaker. Even in the dark, I can make out patches of green in the tiny yard outside the window, Ma’s clothesline hanging loose and slack between the metal poles. It looks like a discarded jump rope now, a forgotten toy that hasn’t been used in years. The single window in Dad’s toolshed is coated with grime, the small door in front edged in rust.

  “Sometimes,” Ma says, “I miss Dad so much I wish I had died along with him that day.”

  I freeze, my hand still inside the coffee filter, as something inside me breaks . . . and then reattaches once more. “I know,” I say. “Me, too.”

  I can hear her turn slightly in her chair, feel her eyes along my back. “Except that I’d never leave you, Bernadette.” Her voice cracks when she says my name. “Never.”

  I turn around as she gets up out of her seat. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you the day . . .” She drops her eyes, struggling to get the words out. I have stopped breathing. “That . . . that day. When that man hurt you.”

  “Ma.” My voice is shaking, hanging on by a cobweb thread. “You couldn’t’ve . . . I let him in . . .”

  She’s staring at me, the lines on either sides of her eyes creasing so deeply that her eyes have almost disappeared. I hold my breath again, wait for her to say I told you so, Bernadette. All those years ago, I told you so.

  Instead, she takes a shaky step toward me. Reaches out with a trembling hand. “Oh, Bird,” she says. “Oh God, I love you so much.”

  She closes both of her arms around me, and when she does, when I feel the solidness of her hands gripping my shoulders, when I smell the familiar scent of coffee and lemon oil behind her ear, it feels as if something I have been waiting for has finally slipped back into place, the final note in a song, the last, single beat.

  I close my eyes, and hold her tight.

  IF MRS. ROSS LOOKED good before, now she looks like she’s about to walk the runway in a Miss America pageant. The woman is glammed up to the max: black silk suit jacket, knee-length skirt, heels with tiny silver buckles on the front, dark red lipstick. She’s rolled and twisted her hair into some kind of chignon, knotted a loose string of pearls around her throat.

  “Your kids must love having a mother that looks like you,” I say. We’re waiting in front of the courtroom, making small talk before we have to go in. I am trying not to vomit.

  “I don’t have kids,” Mrs. Ross says.

  I turn to look at her. “You don’t? What about those pictures in your cubicle? You know, the one of you and the two kids in the pool?”

  “That’s my niece and nephew,” Mrs. Ross says. “Tony and I do a lot of things with them. I can’t have children.”

  “Oh.” I sit back, wondering how many other things I’ve automatically assumed about people will turn out to be wrong. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry,” Mrs. Ross says. “That’s life. That’s just the way it goes. I have other things that make me happy.” She looks over at me. “You nervous?”

  “Horribly.”

  She leans over, pats my knee. “Remember, it’s all up to the discretion of the judge. The district attorney’s office has pressed charges against you, yes, but it’s the judge’s call as to what to do next.”

  “Right.” I smooth my hands over the front of my new pants, run them down along the sides of my hair. “Okay.”

  A short man with white hair and thick stubby fingers opens the courtroom door. “Connolly!” he yells.

  Mrs. Ross stands up quickly, adjusts the pearls around her throat.

  “Okay,” she says. “Let’s go.”

  IT’S A LONG hearing. Testimony is given, taken, and made record of. I watch the stenographer’s fingers pushing the strange little keyboard
in front of her whenever someone says something aloud, stare at the elderly man sitting off to one side, discreetly trying to pick his nose. When I am asked to take the stand, I walk up on sea legs, holding on to the sides of the little brown box they tell me to sit in as if it is the railing of a ship. Mrs. Ross goes up, too, reading a letter that Jane has written on my behalf, and answering questions about my previous behavior, followed by the police officer who found James’s note inside the organ. The judge is an older man with soft white hair that curls around his ears and a long, pointed nose. He lifts the sleeves of his black robe often, as if adjusting his arms inside, and arranges his fingers into a tent whenever someone starts talking. He doesn’t look at me. Not once.

  And then it’s over. The judge asks me to stand. Mrs. Ross stands up with me. The judge says that because he doesn’t believe I acted maliciously, and because James is dead, he is going to roll the aiding and abetting charges into my probation violation charge and issue a single, final sentence.

  I hold my breath, balance myself against the table with my fingertips.

  “Two years’ probation,” the judge says. He looks at me for the first time and points his gavel directly at my face. “You’re getting another chance here, Miss Connolly, because a lot of people seem to believe in you. Turn it around now.” He bangs the gavel once off a small piece of the desk and looks out at the rest of the room. “Hearing adjourned.”

  Mrs. Ross hugs me for a long time afterward. I don’t pull away. Besides, she smells good. “You know I’m one of those people the judge was talking about,” she says finally, picking an invisible piece of lint off the front of her suit jacket. “I really believe in you. Always have.”

  “Really?” I feel shy suddenly.

  “Yes, really.” Mrs. Ross squeezes my hand again.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re a good person.” Mrs. Ross studies me carefully. “You’re a good mother, a good daughter, and a really, really good woman.” She shrugs, as if that’s all there is to it. “That’s why.”

  I give her hand a squeeze, resisting the urge to throw my arms around her neck. “Thank you.”

  “You bet your duppa,” she says. “Try not to worry so much about everything else, okay? Just put one foot in front of the other. Starting now. Today.”

  Chapter 40

  Later that night, I riffle through the phone book in bed, paging through the L’s. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears, and my index finger, which I draw down the list of names I come across, is shaking. It’s a long shot. But I have to try. I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t at least try.

  “Hello?” She picks up on the third ring.

  “Is this . . .” I clear my throat. “Is this Jenny Locke?”

  “Yes.” A pause. “Are you selling something? Because if you’re selling something, I’m not interested.”

  “No, I’m not selling anything.”

  “Who is this, then?”

  I swallow hard, force my voice to steady itself. “This is Bird, Jenny. Bird Connolly? From when we shared the—”

  “I ’member.” She cuts me off, inhales sharply. Starts to say something, and then retreats, as if collecting her thoughts. Then: “I saw you on the news. With James and all that.”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence. I press my fingers against the wildflower print on my quilt, as if the blooms themselves will bleed courage into my skin. “I know it’s been a long time, Jenny. And this might seem really crazy, bringing it up after so many years, but James told me some things that I was hoping to talk to you about.”

  Silence.

  “Jenny?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s about that night,” I say. “When Charlie came over?”

  “Listen, I really didn’t see anything. Actually, I thought you guys were just having make-up sex.” She says this so quickly, an edge of defense so apparent in her voice, that I almost hang up. But then I remember James’s words: Maybe she was just too scared to go back there.

  I want to move past this. I do. But the only way I can move past it is to force Charlie to take responsibility for his actions. To stand up for myself the way I should have that day in his hospital room. Or even in the district attorney’s office, when they were asking me for the real story behind James and Charlie. After I come clean, I can move on. After that, I think I can forgive.

  “Okay,” I say slowly. “But you did hear me screaming, didn’t you, Jenny? You did hear me saying ‘no’ over and over again. Didn’t you?”

  Silence.

  “Jenny?”

  Silence.

  “Jenny. I don’t blame you for not doing anything that night. I was too scared to do anything either. I let it go because I felt guilty that I even let him inside in the first place, because I knew he was drunk and I didn’t even really want to see him. I didn’t call the police, I didn’t report it. I didn’t do anything because I blamed myself. I had a baby, and I never told anyone that he came from a rape. But I’m not the same person that I was back then, Jenny. And I want to hold Charlie accountable now for what he did to me. I want to press rape charges against him. My probation officer told me that there’s a ten-year statute of limitations when it comes to rape charges in our state. So I still have time. But I need your help. James is the only other person who witnessed what happened that night, and he’s gone. You’re all I’ve got, Jenny. And I’m asking for your help. I’m asking you to help me make things right. For me. And my son.”

  There is a soft intake of breath, tremulous and frail as a cloud. “You know, I’ve been waiting for five years to run into you somewhere,” Jenny says finally, “to see you across the street, or in the Laundromat. I guess in the back of my head, I always knew this day would come. It’s like what they say: what goes around comes around.”

  “I’m not trying to punish you, Jenny. Really, I’m not. That’s not what this is about here. I just can’t do it without you.”

  “I was just going to pop in that night,” she says. “Literally. For, like, two seconds. And then I ran into James just as I was about to head upstairs to the apartment to grab something, and he looked like a nervous wreck so I stayed there for a minute and talked to him, and he told me he was trying to work up the nerve to go ask you out.”

  I close my eyes, thinking of it.

  “I told him he had to do it, that we all knew he was crazy about you . . .” Jenny’s voice fades a little; she knows the futility of going down this road, too. “Anyway, he said he would, and I ran upstairs. James knew my boyfriend, who was sitting there in the car, waiting for me, so he stayed downstairs for another minute to talk to him.”

  I bite my lip, close my eyes, pray for her to finish.

  “Anyway, I opened the door, and I heard . . .” She inhales shakily. Clears her throat. “I heard you screaming. I did. Oh God, Bird, I’m so sorry. I heard you saying ‘no’ and . . . I don’t know what happened. I mean, I knew what was happening, or at least I thought I did, but I just couldn’t move.” Her voice rises to a whine on the last word, and then breaks into a sob. “And then James came up. . .”

  “I know.” I nod, all the pieces fitting together suddenly. All of it making sense. All of it culminating, finally, into something I can hold on to. Something I can believe in. “He told me.”

  “He pushed past me as soon as he heard you . . .” Jenny says. “And I was so relieved that someone else was there, that he’d come, that I just bolted.” She cries quietly. “I’ve thought about it every day since it happened, Bird. I’m so sorry. God, I’m just so sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You tell me when and where,” Jenny says. I can hear her blowing her nose over the phone. “When and where, Bird. I’ll be there.”

  AN UNUSUAL WARM front blows in at the end of May, getting so hot at certain points of the day that it is uncomfortable to be outside for long periods of time. Ma puts fans in all the downstairs windows and lets them run all night long. I pull o
ut Angus’s summer clothes and, much to his delight, allow him to sleep in his underwear. The air is still thick with humidity when I visit James’s grave for the first time, and it hovers over everything like an evaporating skin. By the time I reach the corner of the cemetery where the groundskeeper directed me, my arms are slick with perspiration, the small hairs on my neck damp as seaweed.

  His headstone is smaller than I expected, just a rough, rectangular slab, flush with the ground. My heart speeds up as I kneel down next to it and sit back on my heels. It is still unfathomable that he is gone, still just as painful. His absence is like a physical hole in the world.

  I reach out and trail my fingers over the engraved letters: JAMES WILLIAM RITTENHOUSE. Once, and then again. And then, because it is what I would do if he were sitting next to me, I stretch out on my back and tell him about Angus’s magic sneakers, and how he wears them to bed at night. I tell him about the last, nearly miraculous conversation with Ma in the kitchen, and the phone call with Jenny and how, despite my nearly suffocating fear of the impending trial, I am going to push through, see it all the way to the end, no matter what happens. And I tell him that because he loved me, I am a different person now. Stronger. More hopeful. A woman.

  It is not until I get up to leave that I feel the first few drops of rain. The wind is blowing, too, and the leaves overhead make a soft rustling sound. I inhale deeply as the earthy, metallic scent drifts up from the ground and close my eyes. It will be difficult, continuing on without him. And I will miss him every day.

  But he will not be so far.

  He will be here, in every stir of the branches before a rain, inside all the tumultuous fallings from heaven thereafter.

  Chapter 41

  Late June.

  I am in Mr. Herron’s garden, helping him replant some of his flowers. My arms and elbows are covered with dirt, the knees of my jeans clotted with mud. The warmth in the air is palpable, the breeze like a breath against my skin. Tomorrow I will go down to the district attorney’s office again, rehearse the many questions he will ask me when the trial against Charlie starts next month. I feel sick to my stomach when I think about it. It will be opening another door, looking deep into the mouth of another dragon. Mrs. Ross is coming with me, though. And Jenny, too, who is also going to be put on the stand, and will testify to what she heard that night. It might not be as hard as I think with both of them there. It might be possible after all.