Pascal's Wager by Nancy Rue

lawsuit.”
    â€œTed Lyons has a strong sense of the—of the—the thing they do on stage, the theater—”
    â€œThe dramatic?” I said.
    â€œHe always imagines the worst possible impresario.”
    She must have meant scenario, but I didn’t have the nerve to correct her. I just tried not to stare.
    â€œBlood tests have a 99.9 percent accuracy rate,” she went on, “but some of them are so sensational—no—so—you know, they detect every little—they’re so—well, they’re that way, and they can pick up a false positive.”
    She closed her mouth firmly, as if that should explain it all. I was groping.
    â€œYeah, but what does that prove?” I said.
    She glanced at me coldly, which didn’t surprise me, but I saw that she had a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. Maybe I should wait until we got to the restaurant to pursue this further.
    â€œWhere are we going, anyway?” I said. “You didn’t like the food at Marie Callendar’s.”
    â€œI liked it fine. I did a second test—”
    At Marie Callendar’s? No, she was back to the lab thing.
    â€œThe first one was just a—uh—you know, a test that rules things out.”
    â€œScreening test?”
    â€œScreening test. The second one was to conform it.”
    She cocked her head slightly to the side.
She knows that wasn’t the right word
, I thought. I was still considering whether to supply a quick “you mean
confirm”
when she continued.
    â€œThe second test was not as sensible but it was highly pacific. The first test was designated—determined—designed—
whatever
. It was supposed to pick up all cases but not all the people it would pick up would have the thing—the sickness—the—”
    The skin between her eyebrows puckered, and she gave the steering wheel a soft pound with her fist. She had to suddenly slam on the brakes to keep from plowing into the back of theBMW in front of us. I could see the driver staring into her rearview mirror.
    â€œIt’s supposed to filter the false positives out. I guess it didn’t.”
    Mother shrugged, but as we moved forward again she was still holding onto the wheel as if it were threatening to take on a life of its own.
    â€œYou guess?” I said. “I didn’t think you ever
guessed.”
    â€œWhen did you get your medical degree, Jill?” she said.
    â€œMother, come on. You have always prided yourself on—”
    â€œTed goes off about the consolation—no, the comput—what the devil is the
word?”
    I never got the chance to answer. Nor did I have the opportunity to scream, “Mom! Stop!” I just saw the stop sign she was ignoring and heard the sickening squeal of brakes and screeching tires. The blue Jeep Grand Cherokee was just beginning its plow into my mother’s side of the Mercedes as I was snapping my head toward her. The last look I saw on her face was one of complete bewilderment—before we were smashed into the street sign and came to a lurching halt.

FIVE
    T he next few minutes were a smear of Mrs. BMW peering into the Mercedes while chattering incoherently into her cell phone, and the driver of the Cherokee shouting over and over, “Didn’t you see the stop sign, lady? Didn’t you see it?” When the paramedics arrived, they added to it with a chain of increasingly pointless questions.
    The only thing I remembered clearly—once I was piled into an ambulance I didn’t need, ensconced in a neck brace I needed even less—was that my mother hadn’t answered a single one of their queries. She’d just lain there in the front seat and then on the stretcher, blinking at them as they asked her to say her name and tell them if she knew where she was.
    I slanted my eyes toward the paramedic in my ambulance, though I could only see half of him. The stupid neck brace prevented