The Probability of Everything: List 3

Bright red. It spread across his chest like Mom’s paint dyeing a canvas.

Scientists believe that, statistically, the most common last word is “love.” But that’s usually when people are expecting to die. Like when they’re sick or elderly or being executed.

Dad watched them go, his shoulders hunched until they disappeared around the bend.

Dad reached across the console and squeezed my hand.

Even though he’s starting to look faded and watery around the edges, to me, the couch is full of him, the smell of his aftershave, his soft brown sweater that has started unraveling.

He turned and ran, but not before I spotted a glint of metal on the ground.

I decide that when the world ends, I might need something to hold on to. Something that is just as delicate and broken as me.

We drive right into it, into the epicenter of AMPLUS-68.

The pastor starts speaking, saying things about Dad’s life, about his faith in God and people. Uncle Steve gets up too and gives a eulogy, but I’m only barely listening.

It is the worst kind of gone. The most final type of gone, like an asteroid smashing everything to bits.
Like a supernova that explodes and burns up all the other stars, the whole family of stars.
Like the end of the world.

“And black holes?”
“A region of space where matter is so compact that nothing can escape from it. Not even light,” Mom reads.

“I’m more than just sad. I’m determined. I’m resilient. I’m angry too. Angry as heck that someone would hurt your father for such a stupid reason or for absolutely no reason at all. Because he never thought we belonged there, so of course we were in his house. I’m angry that whatever happens to the man who did this will not be nearly as bad as what has happened to us. I’m not going to tell you that it will get any less painful or any less hard, but we will get through it,” Mom says.

“Zaria,” I repeat, eyes wide but still full of sadness.
“It’s a city in Nigeria,” Mom says, “but some people also say it means a blooming flower. Other people say it means radiance.”

“Radiant like a star?”
“Radiant like a star,” Mom confirms.

Then I remember about the funeral and the shooting and the way the universe can explode. My shoulders slump down, and my hands start trembling.

Even with the baby who is going to be parts of Dad and parts of Mom and parts of something totally herself, even with all of that, it feels like the three of us are missing something big and vital, like a stomach or a heart or a lung. But somehow, we are alive.

It turns out that stars are bigger than asteroids. If you play rock, paper, scissors with asteroids and stars, stars trump asteroids.

Through my blurry eyes, I see an easel set up in one corner of the room. Mom is painting again.

I know she is talking about the people who were protesting on our street in Pineview, the people who were outside the church yesterday. The people who have signed petitions and written letters and haven’t treated us the way most people in Pineview did.

The odds of being ambidextrous (being able to use your right and left hand)
—1 IN 100