Pascal's Wager

by Nancy Rue

  “Everything’s a good look for you,” he said. “You’re still beautiful.”

  “Sam, it’s only been about a month since I saw you. Did you expect me to go down the tubes?” I put my hand up. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Thank you. I appreciate the compliment. But look, before either of us can get our other foot into our respective mouths, why don’t you tell me why you came? I’m not going to bite your head off.”

  “I can see that,” he said. “You’re really doing well, aren’t you?”

  “Sam,” I said.

  He scratched at his scalp. “I came to apologize.”

  “There’s no need. We got things out in the open. It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. I have to tell you this. You were right.”

  I caught my breath, as if that were going to stop me from hoping. I nodded carefully.

  “I should have told you about my vow to myself that I would never marry a woman who wasn’t a Christian. I let myself spend time with you because I really did want to help you. I deluded myself—told myself I wasn’t falling in love with you. And then when I knew that I did love you, I thought any minute you’d tell me you believed. Anyway, I was in denial that there was any reason to tell you. I’m sorry.”

  The look on his face was genuine. I hoped the one on mine was not. I didn’t want him to see the disappointment that was churning in my chest.

  Not disappointment that he hadn’t come back to say he’d changed his mind about us. Disappointment that he didn’t ask if I’d changed my mind about God. He didn’t even ask.

  I didn’t tell him that I had replaced the ceiling with a real image of God, and I was talking to Him on a regular basis. That I had finished the Pensées and was now studying the Bible. That my weekly meetings with Nigel picked up the Christ-centered discussions where Sam and I had left off. That Tabitha and I prayed together—well, that she rambled on to the Lord as only Tabitha could do while I listened in sacred fascination. That I was looking for a church. That I talked to Mother about all of it.

  I could have told him all of that and he might have turned around and taken me in his arms instead of climbing back into his SUV and leaving for Illinois to look for a house over spring break. But I didn’t tell him any of it, because he didn’t ask. Because he assumed that without him, it wouldn’t happen.

  And I had made my own vow to God: I would never marry a man who didn’t know my soul.

  Things settled into a somewhat off-center but workable routine, and by the beginning of May I actually began to have time on my hands. The weather was California spring-beautiful—soft and clear—and my body began to long for the Loop.

  I hadn’t been up there since the last time Sam and I had run it. I was holding together nicely without denying myself the occasional cry or pillow thrown across the room, but I was also avoiding “our” places—like the Rose and Crown and Antonio’s. I hadn’t seen Sam since that day before spring break, and I didn’t want to increase the chances. I wasn’t sure if I could handle the extra pain in my chest. It was there. No matter how disappointed I was in him, no matter how much better I knew I now was as a person, the ache of being without him was always there. I knew the pain was more genuine that the cold, unfeeling state I’d lived in before, so I could live with it. But if I saw him and he grinned or pulled me to him with one hand on the back of my neck, could I live with that?

  When finals were over, however, I decided it was worth a chance. Before she left to go home for the summer, Tabitha told me Sam was planning to leave the minute his grades were turned in. So one evening before sunset I put on my running shoes, left Mother on the front porch with Max and Burl, and went to the Loop.

  Deputy Dog was still at her guard post. If she recognized me, she didn’t let on. I wondered vaguely if maybe she’d asked him out once I’d stopped showing up with Sam. There was a time when that would have been an amusing thought.

  The first hill was a killer after several months of neglect, and I had to slow to a walk when I got to the top. I was leaning into a stitch in my side when I saw the little dirt path, leading off the main running road like a tantalizing string beyond the forbidden fence.

  I stood up straight and looked at it. It had really been the beginning of something for me, going down that path with Sam to the Jill Tree. It would hurt to go back there—but it would be sadder not to. I had, after all, come so far since then. I wanted to feel the difference of sitting in that tree now.

  I didn’t even look back to find out if Deputy Dog could see me. I just hoisted myself over the fence and jogged lightly down the path.

  My tree was even more gnarled and misshapen than I’d remembered it, and I felt almost sorry for it as I climbed aboard its long, horizontal trunk.

  “How’ve you been?” I said, patting the bark. “How loony is that? I’m talking to a tree.”

  It’s no loonier than you taking your mother out of a perfectly good facility and playing Nurse Nancy with her at home, I told myself.

  No crazier than you assembling that motley crew you’ve got running your house.

  No weirder than you talking to God.

  I looked up at the sky. The sun was heading down behind the hills, leaving them warm and golden. It wasn’t weird, I decided. I was doing it, and it was working. Maybe it wasn’t changing the things I really wanted God to change—but it was changing me.

  I shifted my weight on the tree trunk and tried to get comfortable, but I was restless. It was as if I didn’t fit here anymore.

  I slid to the ground and, dusting off the seat of my shorts, headed back to the main path. There was no one on it, and as I went into a gentle jog up the hill, I remembered how much I’d loved the silence at one time. No one in my face. Nobody to prove anything to. And then there had been the space of time when I couldn’t stand the aloneness—and I’d call Sam and that would always make it right.

  I pressed my hand to my chest. Okay, God, I thought. I think I’ve learned all I’m supposed to learn from this particular pain. Could we move on, please?

  I heard a noise on the path ahead of me and my insides jumped.

  It was just a large jay, swooping down to inspect the shells of someone’s dropped sunflower seeds, but I knew why it had startled me. This was the spot where I’d seen Sam emerge from prohibited territory, long before I really knew him. I stopped and looked beyond the fence. There was a path there—like the one to my tree—that led over the top of a rise in the same way. Beyond that, I could see branches just over the rise, wavy branches that seemed to be beckoning to me like teasing fingers.

  I leaped over the fence and jogged up the path to the top. Before me was a tree straight out of a Dr. Seuss book. Its base was broad and stood staunchly in the ground, and the primary branches that stemmed from it had grown out and up in a firm and sensible way, like the prongs on a candelabra. But from there, its offshoots sprang up in wavy twigs, ever more whimsical-looking as they stretched and wiggled toward the sky. Toward God.

  It was so Sam, I laughed out loud.

  “All you need is a big goofy grin,” I said to it.

  And then, of course, I had to climb it. It wasn’t a thing I’d done much in my life. Climbing trees had been right up there next to hanging out the side of a cable car in my mother’s recollection of ER days. But I did manage to get myself up far enough to see all of the Loop in silhouette against the blazing sunset.

  “A night of fire,” I said to it. “Blaze Senior would be in his element.”

  I swung my legs and looked up into the wavy branches that danced happily above me. Maybe I was in my element too. It was surely the most peaceful I had felt since…since ever. In spite of the pain of losing Sam, in spite of the heartbreak that might be ahead with my mother, in spite of the mist of uncertainty that now hung over my plans for the future, I was quiet within. And I knew why.

  Well, Pascal, I thought. I don’t need to wait for the coin to fall. I’ve made the toss, I’ve acted as if, and I know how it has landed.r />
  I knew because I’d loved and I still loved and I was always going to love—God, myself, the unlikely assortment of people in my life. And for a person so cold, so rigid, so rational, so terrified, that could only have come from the source of all love. It could only have come from God.

  The sun was making its final descent, leaving a burning rim above the Loop’s silhouettes. “This must be my night of fire,” I whispered to the blaze.

  Like Pascal’s, my moment was immediate, interior, intense. But in that moment, I felt a stunning sadness. I did know love, in all its exaltation and pain, but it hadn’t been love that had been too stubborn to tell Sam that I was coming to know the Christ he so wanted me to. It had only been the remainder of my old self-hate.

  It was almost completely dark, but I couldn’t leave until I’d let that go. I could never allow that to stand between myself and love again.

  I leaned against a solid branch and closed my eyes. Even as I did, I could hear footsteps on the main path—probably Deputy Dog coming after me, citation book in hand. I pressed harder against the tree and waited for them to pass. They didn’t. The footsteps went dull against the dirt path as they came toward me. And then I heard the voice.

  “Hey, you.”

  My eyes came open. “Sam?”

  I looked down. I could barely make out a figure in the dark, but I would have known the tall, lanky frame anywhere.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  “Yeah. Are you?”

  “Yeah. I went by the house. Max told me you were up here somewhere.”

  “I thought you were gone. I thought you went to Illinois.”

  It was absurd, of course—the two of us making small talk while I sat in a tree gaping down at him and he stood on the ground gaping up at me. And somehow acting as if we hadn’t once had a love that had ached inside me.

  I should go down, I thought.

  “I’m coming up,” he said.

  He had obviously done it a number of times before, because he was beside me before I even realized my hands were shaking, much less had a chance to stop them. As he pulled himself up onto the branch, I could see that his face was taut and that his eyes were intense behind his glasses. He dispensed with the pleasantries.

  “Jill, why didn’t you tell me you believe now? I just need to know why. If it’s because you found out you didn’t love me and it was easier to just let me go, I can deal with that. But I need to know.”

  I was shaking my head. “No, that’s not it.”

  “Then why?”

  I didn’t even hesitate. “Because you didn’t ask me. Because you seemed to assume I couldn’t do it without you. Because I’m stubborn, proud, selfish. And because I lick the earth.”

  He opened his mouth.

  “I’m not finished,” I said.

  He closed it.

  “But according to Pascal—you know Pascal?”

  He nodded.

  “According to Pascal, I may be absolute scum myself, but my soul has the capacity for good, because my soul is of God. You know God?”

  He nodded again.

  “So do I.” I let the debate voice drain away. “I should have told you what was happening with me. After all you did for me, you deserved at least that.”

  He was watching me, and his eyes were shining even in the dark.

  “Okay,” I said, “I’m finished now.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “Yes. Except why come looking for me now? How did you find out?”

  He leaned toward me. “My men’s group gave me a going-away dinner tonight. There I am sitting next to Nigel Frost, and I can’t help myself. I ask him if Jill McGavock has finished her dissertation. He looks at me like I have two heads, maybe three, and says, ‘Do you know Jill?’ I tell him I do, and he says, ‘I’m surprised Jill didn’t come to you with the questions she’s been bringing to me. You two would have made a good team. She’s like you—a very intelligent believer.’” Sam looked at me soberly. “I shouldn’t have had to have Nigel Frost tell me. I should have asked you. No—I should have known by looking at you that day.” I could see him swallowing. “I’m sorry, Jill.”

  I nodded.

  “That’s it?” he said. “You’re not going to tell me how arrogant I was?”

  “I’ll tell you I think you lick the earth too,” I said.

  A grin was twitching at his lips. He knew before I said it, before I nodded, before I moved toward him, waiting for him to reach behind me and pull me to him—he knew I still loved him.

  “I am so sorry, Jill,” he said. “I want another chance. Please.”

  “I can’t leave here and go to Illinois,” I said. “Not right now.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t tell you how long it will be before I can.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “But I do love you, Sam. I really do.”

  Then he did pull me to him, his hand on the back of my neck, and he kissed me until I could barely breathe.

  “Is this Pascal’s payoff?” I whispered.

  “Nah,” Sam said. “This is God’s.”

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to express my sincere appreciation to the following people, who helped to make this book a reality:

  Dr. Bill Newsome and Rev. Zondra Newsome, for far too many gifts to enumerate.

  Bill Jensen, for introducing me to Pascal.

  Kristen Boyd, Jessica Purcell, and Dana Roland, for their insights into the Stanford experience.

  Keith Wall, for sensitive, intelligent editing.

  Greg Johnson, for being my agent and friend.

  Rev. Anne Wolf, for spiritual guidance and theological expertise.

  Dr. Michael Torre, professor of philosophy, University of San Francisco, for unveiling the mysteries of philosophy, and Marijean Rue for putting them into terms even I could understand.

  Dr. Steven Foung, director of Clinical Laboratory Services, Stanford Hospital, for giving his valuable time.

  Betty Morse, for sharing her painful firsthand knowledge of Pick’s Disease.

  Kelly Gordon and Tracy Lamb, my personal assistants, for maintaining order along the way.

  Jim Rue, my husband and friend, for twenty-eight years of life-passion.

  God bless all of you.

  Other Books by Nancy Rue…

  ADULT FICTION

  Retreat to Love

  YOUNG ADULT FICTION

  Row This Boat Ashore

  The Janis Project

  Stop in the Name of Love

  Home by Another Way

  The Lucas Secret and Other Stories by Nancy Rue

  Boys and Other Things That Fry Your Brains

  Bringing up Parents and Other Jobs for Teenage Girls

  RAISE THE FLAG SERIES:

  Don’t Count on Homecoming Queen

  “B” Is for Bad at Getting into Harvard

  I Only Binge on Holy Hungers

  Do I Have to Paint You a Picture?

  Friends Don’t Let Friends Date Jason

  How Perfect Is Perfect Enough?

  YOUNG ADULT NONFICTION

  Handling the Heartbreak of Miscarriage

  Learning Guides for The Christian Series

  CHILDREN’S FICTION (AGES 8–12)

  CHRISTIAN HERITAGE SERIES:

  “The Salem Years”

  The Rescue

  The Stowaway

  The Guardian

  The Accused

  The Samaritan

  The Secret

  “The Williamsburg Years”

  The Trick

  The Stunt

  The Discovery

  The Rebel

  The Thief

  The Burden

  “The Chicago Years”

  The Misfit

  The Ally

  The Threat

  The Trap

  The Hostage

  The Escape

  “The Charleston Years”

  The Prisoner

  The Invasi
on

  The Battle

  The Chase

  The Caper

  The Miracle

  “The Santa Fe Years”

  The Capture

  The Pursuit

  THE LILY AND FRIENDS SERIES:

  Here’s Lily!

  Lily Dobbins, M.D

  CHILDREN’S NONFICTION (ages 8–12)

  It’s a God-Thing: The Beauty Book

  It’s a God-Thing: The Body Book

  EVERYTHING IS ON THE LINE…

  For Faith Evans, an up-and-coming newscaster. A woman of honor and integrity, who finds herself making a stand against the one man she never imagined would be her enemy…

  For Jordan Riley, a powerful attorney dedicated to fighting for human rights—and against God. A man still reckoning with the boyhood loss of the three women who once meant everything to him…

  For Bethany, Pennsylvania, a small town no one ever dreamed would become the center of national attention. But it has. All because of a beloved, hundred-year-old statue of Jesus Christ that stands in Bethany’s park. A statue that some say is a clear violation of separation of church and state. A statue that has to come down. A statue that suddenly becomes the focus of a bitter conflict—one rife with political intrigue, social injustice, and personal conflicts. Before it’s over, everything that Jordan, Faith, and the town of Bethany stand for will be challenged.

  Will love be enough when the battle rages on every side?

  ISBN 1-57673-868-X

  TEARS ARE FALLING LIKE SPRING RAIN…

  Seaside, New Jersey. Small town, U.S.A., where everyone knows everyone else’s business…or thinks they do. Even so, there’s nowhere else Leigh Spenser would rather live, no place she’d rather raise her young son, Billy. It’s taken a lot of hard work, but Leigh has finally put memories and rumors to rest and found peace in Seaside. Then Clay Wharton comes home. It only makes sense. Clay’s estranged twin, Ted—Leigh’s closest friend—is dying of AIDS. Even life-long resentments and bitter battles over life choices wouldn’t keep Clay from his family now. Leigh will just have to avoid him—to make sure Clay never discovers the secret she’s protected for so long. If only circumstances would stop throwing Leigh and the man she once loved together, forcing them to face powerful emotions neither wants to acknowledge. But it’s not until Billy’s life is in danger that Leigh and Clay discover the answers they’ve been looking for all their lives. Answers they can only find together. A powerful, moving drama of family conflict, social issues, redemption, and God’s unparalleled forgiveness.