Improbable Odds

It has been a long time, and who I am today I could not have even imagined back then. I was naive if I am to be charitable in my recollections, ignorant and selfish if I am to be more honest, but I would have thought then that I had it together, that I knew what I was doing. I was in my senior year at college, had an apartment that I shared with two guys I had known since we were in high school, and I had a part-time job at a store that catered to the college community selling class rings and other jewelry and sportswear emblazed with the school’s logo. I worked in the basement of the store where we did the custom imprinting of shirts and hats, the bulk of which was with the Greek letters of the frats and sororities. This was needed, I presumed, so that members could display their snobbery in public, or perhaps if they were lost, one could be returned to the correct house, and yet this very desire to display one’s affiliation with the “Greek life” created a sufficient demand for customized sportswear that I could work through the four week winter break, and since my apartment, unlike the campus dorms, did not close for the holidays and therefore force students back to their families, I had for the first time in my life an opportunity to decline my parents’ “hospitality.” In other words, I could finally take a vacation from spending winter break miserably circumscribed by the character I was expected to play in my family’s drama.

It was an emancipating feeling. I had a place of my own (my roommates having joined the herd in the migration to the winter feeding grounds), work enough to pay the bills, and a surprisingly active social life thanks to the holiday spirit of my apartment complex where a camaraderie had arisen between those of us who had chosen to remain. Every evening impromptu gatherings ended up in someone’s apartment, music began, introductions were made, beers were opened, and joints were lit. After just the first week of this vacation, I felt as if for the past several years I had been a leaf caught in an eddy on the side of a river, circling, waiting, and now I was freed to join the main current, and it was in the second week that, while I would not realize it for some time, I would encounter someone who would profoundly affect my life.

It was a Saturday night, the snow was falling softly, and I had made my way over to an apartment two doors down from mine. Scott lived there, or maybe it was Dave, I wasn’t really sure what his name was -- we had greeted each other in the parking lot occasionally and had had a few conversations about the weather or the weekend football game, but this was the first time I had had any reason to be in his apartment. Most of the people there were like Scott (or Dave) in so much as I had seen them around and maybe said hello, but for the moment, my attention was focused across the room on a beautiful pair of JBL speakers attached to a Pioneer SX-1080 receiver with a turntable which I didn’t recognize. The equipment was reproducing Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” well enough that one might have thought that Stewart himself was in the room.

“Great sound system,” a girl next to me said. I didn’t know how long she had been standing there, and that was a shame because she was attractive. Very attractive. I nodded my agreement and, assuming that she was out of my league and only being polite as she passed by me, I turned my attention back to the stereo. She stepped in front of me and extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Jane.”

I was more than a bit stunned. Her blue jeans, a fuzzy blue mohair sweater, dark hair styled in a short shag cut, her delicate features and infectious smile combined to dizzying effect. I took her hand and shook it very slowly, admiring its softness, impressed with the firmness of her grip and noting that she made no attempt to pull away. I grinned at my thoughts.

“What?” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You haven’t said anything. You’re just kind of smiling.”

“I’m sorry, I was trying not to say, ‘Me Tarzan.’ You don’t seem to be the type of girl who would appreciate that.”

She stopped smiling and stopped shaking my hand but did not release it. “And what type is that?”

“Fatuous.”

“Oh, good word. Then what type do you think I am?”

“Keen, as in sharp, perceptive.”

“Oh really? Tell me more.”

“Well, I don’t know much yet. It’s just that you seem refined and confident. I would guess that you are not much into vacuous chatter.”

“Well at least not testosterone-driven adolescent drool, that’s correct.”

“And that you are kind and benevolent, and are charitably disposed to forgiving someone for drooling?”

Jane got a thoughtful expression on her face as if she was carefully considering my words. She had still not let go of my hand. After a moment she nodded. “True enough,” she said. “So if not Tarzan, what should I call you?”

“Willy.”

“Willy?”

“Willy Winkle. My friends call me Wee.”

“You’re an ass, Mr. Winkle.”

“It’s a gift.”

“May I call you Wee?”

“I’m flattered. If you wish to remain a bit more formal, you may call me Paul.”

“Paul?” Jane got that thoughtful expression again. She smiled and let go of my hand. “Nah. I think Wee.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, Jane.”

“You haven’t. I’m just visiting. I’m tagging along with Ryan’s fiancée.”

“Ryan?”

“Ryan. The guy who lives here?”

“Ryan, right.” Or Scott or Dave.

“Sue and I are roommates at Dickenson. She and Ryan wanted to spend some time together, and since my parents were in Europe, she suggested I tag along so I didn’t have to be alone.”

“Europe?”

“Dad’s got some kind of business to do there, and my mother has family in France, so they’ll be gone for a couple of months. My mother wanted me to join them, but I just didn’t feel like it.”

I was in uncharted territory here. Dickenson was one of those expensive and exclusive private schools that attracted the type of person whose family might be expected to gallivant about Europe, unlike the land-grant university I attended because it was what I could afford and where my family’s measure of exclusivity was the truck camper on Dad’s pickup that was envied by those in tents at the campsites where we spent the night while on our vacations. I was hoping that Jane was not just slumming. I found her disarmingly attractive and was at quite a loss as to what to do or say next. Fortunately, Jane was not so distracted.

“Decent sound system,” she said glancing at the equipment on the other side of the room.

“Excellent, although maybe a bit much for the space.”

“Perhaps. Dad says that you can always find a place for the right equipment. He prefers Marantz components for the most part but has an odd attachment to some Kenwood speakers that I’ve never really understood.”

“You don’t care for Kenwoods?”

She squinted. “They’re okay, I guess. I just think you could do better.”

“If not Kenwoods, what would you have?”

Her expression turned surprisingly serious as she turned to look at me. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes?” I said, hoping that was the right answer.

“I would want some pizza. Does this town have any good pizza places?”

“Several.”

“You couldn’t be convinced to show me one, could you?”

“I learned long ago never to stand between a woman and her pizza.”

A proper statistician, I suppose, could probably work out the odds of a meeting like this -- an unplanned trip, an impromptu party, an unexpected dinner -- and it was by odds improbable. Kismet some would call it, or luck, perhaps divinely inspired, or simply serendipity, but I didn’t see the universe as so capricious as to interfere with the natural order of things, at least I didn’t back then anyway. If one could step back a bit and observe from the proper distance, human interactions would be much more like Brownian motion where particles skitter about as the result of countless collisions with molecules of the medium in which they are suspended. It was simply happenstance that I found myself sitting across a pizza from Jane.

“Damn,” she said. “This is good pizza, Wee.”

“Please, call me Paul.”

“What’s your last name?”

“Winkle.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. Paul William Winkle, of the California Winkles, although my family pulled up stakes and moved cross country to Uniontown the year before I was born. There are currently four families named Winkle in Uniontown, but we all deny being related to one another.”

“And your friends call you ‘Wee?’”

“Occasionally, and just a few that have known me all my life. There was a time in my friends’ lives when there was a certain celebrity attached to knowing the “real” Willy Winkle, but that time has passed.”

“How sad,” Jane said. “Well, then, it must be Paul. I suppose that could fit. Paul also has good mythological roots.”

“What?”

“Paul -- the Jewish zealot named Saul turned Paul, the pen pal to the Greeks?”

I suppose I could be forgiven for not following what Jane was saying. The household in which I was raised was very secular. Matters of a spiritual or religious nature were not addressed, nor were they forbidden, but these things fell into much the same category as bovine birthing practices, a subject of such little relevance to our lives as to be non-existent. God, as it was presented to me when I asked, was an adult equivalent of Santa Claus, a personification of the abstract values of a culture. My parents had permitted and even encouraged my belief in Santa when I was young because it was ubiquitous in our country, and they saw it as innocuous and something that could be easily enough discarded. God, and especially religion, was much more like alcohol -- inappropriate and dangerous for the young. Any decisions about God should best be considered after one reaches one’s majority.

“Pen pal?”

Jane put down a slice of pizza, and with elbows on the table, rested her chin on her folded hands. She looked intently at me for a moment.

“Paul,” she said, “was the author of most of the letters in the New Testament that were written to the church communities of Greece.”

“Oh.” I felt a bit uneasy. I had dated a girl in high school, and we thought we were pretty serious, although she more than I. Things were good between us until she invited me to have dinner with her parents. Her father was a minister of some kind at a little church in town, and during dinner, he asked me a lot of questions about my family’s beliefs, which I readily shared with him because I wanted him to know that tolerance of others was important to me. When he asked if I had or was willing to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior, I reiterated that I was tolerant, but not interested. My soul, he said, was in danger of spending eternity in the fires of Hell, and he could not in good conscience allow his daughter to risk hers and so forbade her from seeing me, and in fact we never saw each other after that evening, and if I am to be honest, I felt more relieved than upset with that outcome as I had been feeling a bit suffocated by the relationship, but that girl was not Jane, and for someone who looked like Jane, I could see no reason to let religious beliefs interfere with what seemed to be a promising evening.

“Not much into the Bible, are you Mr. Winkle?”

I shook my head.

“Hmm. Most people aren’t. What are you into?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, like, what’s your major?”

“Aw,” I said glad to be moving away from the Bible. “Accounting.”

“Ah,” she said. “The scriptures of business.”

“Pardon?”

“All financial statements enlighten a business, expose its sins, and guide an organization to profitability, equipping it with the tools it needs to succeed.”

“I’ve never heard it put that way.”

“That’s just a paraphrasing of what your namesake Paul said in a letter to one of his Greek friends.”

“Again from the Bible?”

“The second letter to Timothy. Chapter three, verses sixteen and seventeen if you’re interested.”

“So is your thing accounting, or is it the Bible?”

“Neither. Both.” Jane went back to eating her pizza.

I was younger by four decades then, but even now I can still remember the feeling of being enraptured by Jane, how it was difficult not to stare at her intoxicating beauty, how the lilt and warmth of her voice washed over me, how she conducted herself in such a way that even the simple act of eating a piece of pizza was imbued with sensuality.

“Accounting and religion,” Jane said, “each in their own way, attempt to shed light on human behavior in the context of a bigger picture and in so doing allow the individual to make decisions that benefit herself and her community.”

“I don’t remember reading that in any of my accounting texts.”

“Probably not, but you might in a comparative religions text like the ones I read.”

“Is that your major?”

“Yes.”

“Does that mean you’re very religious?”

“Absolutely not. I’m Catholic.” Jane grinned as if she had just said something very funny. “So what are you going to do with your accounting degree?”

“I’m going to go to California and find a job.”

“California? Really?”

“I want to get involved in the wine industry.”

“Why wine?”

“You know the adage “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life?”

“Ah. ‘The joy of fish is to swim, the joy of birds is to fly, the joy of beasts is to run. The joy of man is to put his heart into what he does.’ Those were the words, more or less, of Zhuangzi, a Taoist philosopher nearly twenty-four hundred years ago.”

I had never before and have never since those days liked stupid women and have always found distasteful feigned helplessness or naivety used to give the impression of femininity. When Jane spoke, it was immediately obvious that she was smart. She didn’t say things to impress people, and she didn’t blather.

“Are the California Winkles in the wine business?” Jane asked.

“Don’t really know. My Dad and I make wine as a kind of hobby. The wines aren’t all that good actually, but it did start me down the road to appreciating wine and the wine industry.”

“I see. Are you a red or white person?”

“Definitely red.”

“Varietals, or a blended wine?”

“Are wines part of your comparative religions curriculum?”

Jane laughed. “No, not at all. What I know of wines comes from occasional visits to my parents’ wine cellar. Dad was a Cab man, and my mother honored her family roots by preferring a Blanc de Blanc Champagne.”

“Well, my wine cellar is the kitchen refrigerator in which you will find a red Cabernet Franc and a white Niagara, both produced under my family label from locally sourced grapes. The red is thin-bodied and a bit tannic, and the white is pleasant but sweet almost to the point of being cloying. I also have hidden away a couple of bottles of a Sonoma County Pinot Noir that I have been saving for a special occasion.”

“And what would constitute a ‘special occasion?’”

“Well, that’s difficult to say.”

“Perhaps this is something you need to talk about.”

“Perhaps”

“I’m a good listener, I’m told.”

“Really? Perhaps then when we’re done here, we can find a place to talk.”

Jane gave a slight nod in a lukewarm endorsement of the idea.

“Talk things out,” I said. “Maybe over a glass of wine.”

“Well, what harm could come of it, I suppose.”

“I thought perhaps the philosophers in your comparative religions texts would have something to say about the dangers of such an invitation.”

“Ah, well, while there are many ways to look at social interactions of this kind; in this case, I think the quote that applies is, ‘a dame that knows the ropes isn’t likely to get tied up.’”

“That’s from a comparative religions text, is it?”

Jane shook her head. “Mae West.”

I have no regrets in life, not really -- maybe a little that I didn’t invest in Microsoft in the beginning. Too many people spend too much time getting caught up in the minutiae, worried about things they cannot change. I had watched my mother live mired in regret. She was, she thought, born too poor, denied the education she so dearly wanted, and married a man who failed to love her as she imagined he should, and she did not (to the chagrin of those around her) suffer these things quietly. Whether it can be said that I learned from her example, or it was that I simply tired of the turmoil she created about her, I found that I was better off if I simply accepted my circumstances for what they were, and when any of them made me uncomfortable, find a way to change them without scorching the earth in my pursuit. I had never shared those thoughts with anybody, but I found myself doing just that with Jane when we had gotten back to my apartment on that snowy night. She had thrown her coat on a chair, kicked off her shoes, and immediately made herself comfortable on the couch as soon as we had walked in. I got a couple of glasses and the Pinot Noir and sat down next to her, and we talked. It was surprising to me how easily our conversation flowed from one subject to the next, from frivolous to profound, from superficial to intimate. We had already discussed the weather, dorm living, sororities (which she hated but was a Pi Phi to satisfy her mother, a Pi Phi alum), favorite movies, future plans, the war in Vietnam, women’s rights, and Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae.

“So, your relationship with your family is difficult?” We had gravitated toward each other, our movements insinuating a growing intimacy. As Jane asked the question, she reached out and gently brushed my hair back away from my forehead.

“Could be worse, I suppose. I’ve just gotten to the point where I know there’s nothing I can do to make things better, so I just try to put some distance between us.”

“Very Stoic,” Jane said and smiled.

“Stoic?”

“There are elements of classic Stoicism in your reasoning -- recognizing and accepting the natural order of things, realizing that there are things beyond your control and focusing instead on what you can control, and…” Jane paused long enough to slowly lean forward and very quickly, very gently kiss my lips. “…and possessing an even-tempered, sweet personality,” she said very quietly.

I returned the kiss, also very gently, but I did linger there, in part enrapt by the sensations, in part waiting to see if there were any reservations on Jane’s part.

“It’s getting late,” I whispered.

Jane nodded slowly without taking her eyes off mine.

“Perhaps I should walk you home.”

Jane shook her head and again kissed me, although this time there was no mistaking where we were headed.

There is no need for tawdry details here except to say that our lovemaking was exuberant even to the point where in our passion we knocked the (fortunately) empty wine bottle off the table next to the couch with enough force to send it all the way to the kitchen where it spun round and round on the linoleum. It came to a stop pointing at us, which we laughingly interpreted as license to continue, and so we made our way back to the bedroom, the few pieces of clothing we had on strewn in our wake. Afterward, we lay quiet and content, Jane’s head resting on my chest.

Even now, after all these years, I still vividly remember how I felt at that moment, the kaleidoscope of physical sensations that swirled through me -- the still fresh heat of our sex, the feel of her skin on mine, her scent, the exhilarating sight of her nakedness. I wanted to circle this day on my calendar, plant my flag, beat my chest, and howl from atop a rock.

“Paul,” Jane said without raising her head.

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow is Sunday.”

“Yes.”

“I need to go to Mass.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know where the Catholic Church is?”

“I can find out.”

“Thanks. Come with me?”

I momentarily felt the flames of Hell again licking at the feet of my soul, or might have had I believed that I had a soul, but spending the time with Jane seemed worth the risk.

“Sure.”

Jane snuggled closer to me and was soon asleep.

The next morning, I got the phone book and looked up the Catholic church. It was, as it turned out, only about two blocks from my apartment, and I would have passed by it every time I went to the campus, but I had never taken notice of it. We walked there, hand in hand, for the nine a.m. service, and Jane led me inside, stopping momentarily to dip her fingers in the container of water by the door and cross herself, then we took a seat at the very rear of the church.

“We will be standing and kneeling at times during Mass,” Jane whispered to me. “You may stay seated and simply observe or join in if you wish. Don’t do anything you are uncomfortable with.”

I nodded. As the music started and everyone rose to their feet I joined them, simply because I felt less conspicuous. I also sat when everybody sat. However, I did not kneel. Kneeling seemed too much of a public statement. Standing or sitting, I was simply observing, but kneeling was a sign of deference or an expression of commitment that I was certainly not willing to make. I watched Jane while she knelt, hands clasped in front of her. Her eyes were closed tightly, and her brow would furrow at times as if she were wrestling with her emotions. I had never watched anyone pray before. Jane did not appear to be simply lost in a reverie, rather I was surprised at how engaged she appeared to be with something outside of herself, something beyond my perception. I tried to be neither obvious nor intrusive, but it was difficult not to savor the sight of her countenance when she was so engaged.

After the service, as we walked back to the apartment, Jane clung to my arm in what seemed to be a display of intimacy, but it could well have been that she was simply sheltering as much as she could from the cold December winds.

“Thank you for coming with me,” she said.

“It’s important to you, isn’t it?”

“What? The Mass?”

“I mean the whole religion thing. Religion is important to you.”

She nodded slowly and smiled.

“You seemed very…how do I want to say this?...very intense during the service.”

“Interesting,” Jane said. “Should I take that as a compliment?”

“No, it wasn’t meant to be a compliment. Just an observation. I was sent to hell once by a girl’s father who seemed similarly intense.”

Jane smiled and gripped my arm a little more securely. “I assure you that I have neither the authority nor the desire to send you to hell.”

“But you believe in the whole heaven-hell-God thing.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“One answer is that the customs and traditions of the Church have been passed down from generation to generation in my family for literally hundreds of years, the structure and prayers of the Mass you just attended have remained largely unchanged and would be easily recognizable to someone who attended Mass a thousand years ago, and the Mass is itself an evolution of the Jewish Seder, a tradition born tens of centuries before that. I like feeling integrated into that history.”

“What’s the other answer?” Frankly one answer seemed enough, but I was curious. Jane was something I had never encountered before. On the one hand, she was pure and delightful sensuality. On the other, she had a remarkable intellect and was unapologetically spiritual. It was usually difficult to tell what a person believes. They blend into a secular society and are careful not to say or do anything that would offend. That is why they try not to notice the turban on a Sikh male’s head, and they shush the child who inquires about the passerby’s funny hat. The Jehovah’s Witness at the door makes them uncomfortable, partly because the witness seems intolerant and brash, but partly because they feel so ill-prepared to oppose them with any coherent explanation of their own beliefs. Jane could talk about her beliefs as easily and engagingly as she talked about history, politics, Marlon Brando’s performance in The Godfather, or the veracity of the rumors of Paul McCartney’s death (which she thought were specious).

“The other reason is that the gift and the burden of being sentient, of being human, is the need to understand the interconnectedness of all things and to find and return to the common source of the existence of all things. Religion is the response to that need.”

“Oh.” It was all I could think of saying at that moment.

Our conversation lightened after we got back to my apartment. Jane insisted on making breakfast, and it was no surprise that she was able to whip together an extraordinary hash from what odds and ends I had in the refrigerator -- some potatoes, bell pepper, onion, and linguica, topped with a perfectly fried egg with a runny yolk that spilled over the hash like a luscious sauce. She said that she and Sue would be leaving the next day.

“I hope you’ll stay here tonight,” I said.

She smiled and nodded. “You certainly live up to your reputation.”

“I have a reputation?”

“Oh yes.”

“Says who?”

“Well, your roommates for one, and several of your neighbors. They all said you were a nice guy.”

“Said to who?”

“To Sue. She had seen you around when she came to see Ryan and thought you were good-looking, and thought maybe if I came with her on one of her visits, we could meet up. She asked around and people said you were quiet but really nice.”

“So you had people spying on me?”

“Of course. You don’t think I’m the kind of person that would hop into bed with someone I simply met at a party, do you?”

“Well,” I said a bit sheepishly. “I am, so I wasn’t going to be too critical.”

“I like the way you think, Paul. You’re smart, you’re kind, and I’ve enjoyed our time together.”

We spent the rest of the day playing house. We washed dishes together, watched television (during which time Jane displayed an anomalous pedestrian bent and insisted on watching “Frosty the Snowman” because Jimmy Durante was so “dreamy”), and then went to the store at Jane’s insistence so that she could get what she needed to make pasta al ragu. I think just to show off, she made the pasta from scratch -- a cup of flour, two eggs and one egg yolk, a little salt, mixed, kneaded, let to rest for half an hour, then rolled out and then cut into pappardelle. Along with a ragu of beef and pork, it was delicious. I was impressed. After dinner, we snuggled on the couch, listened to music, and talked. Later that evening, we went back to the bedroom, undressed, and got into bed. There was no rushing, no frenzied passion, instead there was a warm, comfortable, feeling of intimacy. We lay in a tender, intimate embrace, content to wait for the passion to come when it might.

“Jane?”

“Yes.”

“I’m curious. From your perspective, isn’t what we’re doing a sin?”

“Hmmm,” she said without moving. “Good question.”

“Seriously. I don’t want to be a part of you compromising yourself. I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret.”

She got up on one elbow and looked at me with a very approving smile on her face. “Paul, you really are such a sweet guy.”

“I’m just saying that you are serious about religion, and I thought perhaps that you might consider this a moral dilemma.”

“It might be one day. It may happen that I will find someone with whom I fall deeply in love, and I will then promise my fidelity to them in front of God and before family and friends. If after I make that promise I find myself sleeping with someone else, I will have done so knowing I betrayed my God, my spouse, and my community. It will be a sin.

“I’ve made no such promises yet. Here and now, with you, I believe that we are simply sharing a beautiful part of our humanity.”

Our love-making that night was transcendent. Physical intimacy was not the goal but only the means to a mingling of thought and being in a place where only Jane and I existed, where we could touch without the burden of sensation. Afterward, when I was finally deposited back in my bed as gently as a feathery dandelion seed born on the most delicate of breezes, and I found Jane in my arms, another question occurred to me.

“Is it possible,” I said, “that I might be someone you could love?”

But Jane had already fallen asleep.

Jane did indeed leave the following day to return to Dickenson, and despite promises to the contrary, I never saw or heard from her again. I wrote numerous letters and made numerous phone calls, but all attempts went unanswered, and eventually, I took the hint. Besides, by that time I had graduated and it was time for me to move on.

I made my way to California, although I never managed to land a job in any facet of winemaking. To avoid homelessness and starvation, I took a job on the assembly line of an auto plant in San Jose and worked my way up to an area manager position before the plant closed in 1983, then moved up the road to Fremont at another assembly plant and worked there until it closed in 1992. I had hated almost every day of my working life, and after nearly twenty years had had enough. I sold my home in San Jose and moved to the Sierra Foothills, to a small town whose main selling points were very affordable homes and proximity to more than a dozen small wineries. I live alone now. There have been a few women in my life, but perhaps I expected too much, and with the auto assembly business requiring long hours, none of the relations were strong enough to weather the strain.

I’ve gone to Mass every Sunday for many years now, although I don’t consider myself Catholic, but I go, and I sit in the last pew in the back of the church, and although I try not to stare, I look at all the women in the back of the church. A proper statistician, I suppose, could probably work out the odds of seeing her again, and it is by odds improbable. I also listen to the words of the Mass. In particular, I listen to the response the congregation gives when the priest holds up the communion wafer and says something like, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the lamb.” The people then respond, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” It is a response based on a story in the Bible where a Roman soldier approaches Jesus and asks for his help to heal a servant but admits that he himself is not somebody for whom Jesus should go out of his way. He was a soldier in a brutal army in a brutal time. He did not get to where he was by being a nice guy, but he at least cared enough about someone to make an effort. I like that about him.

I don’t know why Jane never answered my letters. I suppose even if she had nothing would have come of it. I didn’t have the money or the connections that she would probably need in a relationship. Or maybe the experience of that weekend long ago was for her nothing like it was for me. She made me think, and I often think about her. I think about our conversations. I think about how just being near her altered my perception of the things around me. I think about her beauty. I think about how Jane was wrong about one thing -- what we did that weekend was a sin. I’m not sure if it was hers or mine, but I know that I held onto the sensations of those days until they had soured and gone over, and still I could not let them go. I think about Jane’s certainty in her belief that there is a God, and I think about how there have been times in my life when I wished I could have had that kind of certainty.

If there is a God, I might approach him as did the soldier and let him know that I did what I could while I did what I had to so he owes me nothing, but any kindness he could show her would be appreciated.