Lucky

By Josh Rank

 

They knew me at the liquor store on the corner. My order was always sitting on the counter by the time I reached the front of the line. Five numbers, the same every week, on one ticket. It wasn’t much but at least it didn’t come in a bottle. It never occurred to me that my numbers would actually match the ones on the little ping pong balls on the television towards the end of the news, so when it finally happened, it took a minute for me to believe it.

34 million dollars.

My chest felt like it disappeared.

Ever since Jacob’s mom died a couple years before, things had been tough. People say not to include finances when assessing your level of happiness but try telling a child that he has to wear his clothes until they disintegrate. See if he understands that being sad is a state of mind. He’s only seven but school is tough. It doesn’t take long before the other kids pounce on a weak classmate. And there was nothing that hurt me more than thinking about Jacob being pushed around just because his mother died in a car accident.

But the ticket in my hand nullified that worry. I was on the couch, Jacob had gone to bed, and I tried still my thoughts long enough to comprehend my new reality. People might think I would run into my son’s bedroom, shouting and hugging. Possibly saying something along the lines of, “All of our worries are gone!” But that wasn’t what happened. My heart kept its rapid pace but from fear, not excitement. I had proven to myself that even though the odds of winning are somewhere around one in two­-hundred million, it was possible to do it. Sure, we all know somewhere in the back of our mind that someone has to win, someone has to hit those tiny odds, but that’s usually an abstract concept like when we think of how much water is on the earth. There’s a lot. An unfathomable amount. But we don’t actually understand the full weight of the answer. And now, as I sat on my couch unable to move, I understood the odds. I understood that anybody could be the lucky one out of a billion and instead of feeling empowered, I was horrified.

Falling into a sinkhole, being struck by a meteor, stray bullets, cars running up onto sidewalks, all of it not only seemed possible, but probable. I figured my lucky streak didn’t only apply to positive outcomes. What’s stopping my luck from hitting the 1 to 280,000 odds of being struck by lightning?

I turned out the lights and TV and walked into my bedroom. I put the ticket into my desk drawer and pulled out my wife’s wedding ring. My brother had tried to convince me to bury her with it, that perhaps it would act as a means of closure, but I just couldn’t do it. I walked to the bed where I kneeled down and held the ring between by hands.

“You’re never going to believe what happened tonight,” I quietly mumbled. “Jacob’s schooling, his food and clothes, shit everything he could ever want has been paid for with a stupid lottery ticket. Remember how you told me they were a waste of time?” We used to have tiny arguments about the five dollars a week I’d spend on the lottery. She said it was a waste of money. I told her I was paying for the hope.

“What’s weird is, I should be dancing down the street but I don’t want to risk being hit by a car or mugged and shot or arrested or…” I let myself trail off because I knew how stupid it was. I kissed the ring and returned it to my desk drawer beside the winning ticket. The bed sheets were cool but it wouldn’t be long before my body heat warmed them up. I turned out the light.

 

My alarm went off at 6:30 the next morning but I wasn’t asleep. I wasn’t awarded the luxury. Instead, I listened to the sounds outside and imagined each possible disaster throughout the night. I silenced the alarm and pushed myself out of bed to make breakfast. I knocked on Jacob’s door as I passed it and walked into the kitchen to make some eggs. I flipped on the gas stove and stared at the flames. I saw explosions and burned flesh. Fire alarms rang in my ears over the screams of people trapped behind locked doors. Phantom smoke filled my nostrils. I turned off the heat and got out a couple of bowls for cereal.

We eventually made it out the door and into the car. I pulled out of the driveway and gasped when I saw the traffic at the end of the street. Cars zoomed by in both directions. The fact that it doesn’t take more than a slight turn of the wheel to create an orphan wrapped itself around my chest tighter than the seat belt. I slowly pulled into traffic.

“Do you know what ‘luck’ is?” I asked.

Jacob turned his head and shrugged. “Isn’t it like something that helps us?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s the idea.” I wanted to tell him how it could apply to more than just lottery tickets and raffles but that seemed to be a little too much to lay on a kid on the way to second grade.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“What were you doing last night?”

“What do you mean?”

“I heard you talking but I didn’t hear anybody talking back.”

“Oh that.” I scrambled for a lie. Mentioning his mom would only make him sulk for the rest of the day. I opted for redirection. “We, uh, we got some good luck last night, bud.”

“We did?”

“Yeah we did.” It had been a while since I could give him some good news. It helped me believe it was good, too, even though I knew it wasn’t. I was lying to myself and I knew it but it relieved the tension for a moment and I welcomed the reprieve. My answers were vague enough for him not to pursue it any further and a little while later, we arrived at the school.

“Alright bud, you be good.”

“Okay.” He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek before hopping out of the car. I waited until he walked through the doors of the school before I pulled away from the curb. Jacob will be safe in there. Won’t he? Yes, of course he will.

Going to work wasn’t an option. I drove home with both hands on the wheel and my eyes firmly focused on the road until I was able to park and turn off my car. I went inside, locked the door behind myself, and walked into the bedroom. I opened the dresser drawer and took out the lottery ticket to check the numbers. I did a quick internet search and sighed. There was no avoiding it: I was lucky.

Driving Jacob to school was terrifying but necessary. He has to go to school otherwise he’ll fall behind in his classes or even worse, they might think I’m an unfit parent. This was something I had been afraid of ever since his mother died. She was always the one to go to the school meetings and such since I was usually at work. I still didn’t feel comfortable there after she passed, so I avoided it. I felt like they were all just waiting to find a reason to call social services on me. School was unavoidable, but work could be postponed. I walked to the front door and pulled the deadbolt.

I wasted my day checking mortality rates due to car accidents and trying to distract myself with daytime TV. Before I knew it, three o’clock and Jacob’s school was letting out.

After a quick breathing exercise, I grabbed my keys, walked to my car, and started driving. I ignored the honking horns and angry drivers as I slowly made my way towards the school. But it didn’t matter how safely I drove. I knew that it only took one second of somebody else not paying attention to ruin everything. And that’s exactly what happened.

I was a mile away from the school, waiting at a red light with the radio off. It turned green and I released my brake and started driving. To my left, a car entered the intersection in an attempt to squeeze in a quick left turn before traffic started through the green light. My brakes locked up and his tires squealed as we narrowly avoided each other. A middle finger flew in my direction and I finally released my breath as the other cars filled the intersection.

I pulled over once I made it to the other side and turned off my car. My hands were shaking and little white dots filled my vision. I unclipped my seatbelt and abandoned the car as the other lunatics zoomed past me. I started running down the sidewalk. I didn’t want to be late to the school and risk Jacob thinking I forgot about him or worse, an abduction. In my mind, there was a line of unmarked, windowless vans in front of the school just waiting for the next parentless child to wander onto the sidewalk. I couldn’t let that happen. So I ran.

It was only a mile but I’ve never been known for my physical prowess. I found Jacob standing next to the flag pole when I finally arrived, wheezing and sweating. Mr. Parson, his homeroom teacher, stood next to him.

“Dad?” he said.

“Jacob. Hey. Don’t, don’t be afraid.” I put my hands on my knees and tried to catch my breath. “I’m here. You’re safe.” I put my arm around his shoulder and scanned the yard around us. “Let’s go home, son.”

“Jim. Are you okay?” asked Mr. Parson.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.”

He was looking at me like I had an extra eye in my forehead. I knew he was filled with nothing but terrible thoughts. We had to get home, with a locked door, as soon as possible. But I didn’t have my car and it wouldn’t be any safer in a cab so we were forced to walk.

“Where’s your car?”

I turned Jacob away from his teacher and looked Parson in the face. “It’s somewhere else. Anything else you want to ask? Preferably something that is remotely your business?”

The teacher put his hands up and took a step backwards. But he didn’t turn around. And he didn’t apologize.

It took us about a half hour but we eventually walked into our apartment and I locked the door behind us. I told Jacob the car had been stolen and that we wouldn’t be seeing it again. I thought that if I was forced to leave my apartment, I could just buy a tank. As long as we were home, we were okay. Excluding natural disasters. And stray bullets. And poisonous spiders.

 

Two weeks passed. My employers did me the favor of firing me after the first week of not calling in and not showing up. And after two weeks of Jacob showing up late to school, if I was able to get him there at all, they seemed to be reaching a tipping point as well. This is why it shouldn’t have been a surprise when there was a knock at my door while we were eating dinner.

I looked through the peephole for about ten seconds before I said, “Who is it?”

“Damon Ball. Social Services. Could you open the door, Mr. Thorn?”

I hesitated with the lock. He didn’t have a search warrant so I could just tell him to get lost. Plus, how do I know this wasn’t a ruse to murder both me and Jacob with a hacksaw?

“Identification?” I said. I watched as he dug in his pocket and pulled out what looked to be a card. It was impossible to read it through the peephole. But the man looked somewhat small and if it came to blows, I thought I’d be able to take him. I unlatched the lock and cracked the door open.

“Let me see that,” I said. He held the laminate closer to my face and I saw it was legit.

“Mr. Thorn, I’m just following up on some questions we’ve been receiving about the welfare of your child.”

“Questions? By who?” I didn’t need to ask. The look Mr. Parson gave me outside of the school was burned into my memory.

“It seems Jacob has been missing a lot of school lately.”

“We’ve been busy.”

“And his teachers were troubled by your appearance. I’m just here to make sure their worries are unfounded so we can put all of this behind us. May I come in?”

I looked behind me at Jacob sitting at the table.

“I can’t let you in here.”

“Sir, I have to say that your behavior is aligning pretty well with their concerns. If you allow me to disprove them, we can forget about all of this. But if you insist on blocking my inquiry, I’ll be forced to come back with the police.”

“Well then go get your backup,” I said as I started closing the door.

He stuck his foot in the crack, leaving the door open a few inches. “Listen, Jim is it? I gotta tell you, this looks bad. I know you’re wife is gone and I don’t want you to lose your son, too. He hasn’t been coming to school, your behavior has been erratic and unpredictable, and people are raising concerns about the welfare of your child. You can’t go on like this if you want to keep Jacob around. We only want what’s best for him, but at the same time, we want what’s best for you too. I don’t want this to get nasty, but if you force me, I’ll have no choice. Now please, let’s just put this to rest.”

I stayed silent. Could I trust him? Anybody can print up a little card. But if he’s telling the truth, I was in danger of losing my child. I couldn’t figure out how I should be thinking. I didn’t know which right was the most right.

“Wait here,” I said. “But let me close the door, please.” He withdrew his foot and I locked the door. “Be right back,” I said into the peephole.

Jacob sat at the table, silent through the whole exchange. I glanced at him as I walked past and managed a smile while I held up a finger to him as if saying, “Just a second.” I walked into my bedroom, opened the drawer with the lottery ticket, and pulled out my wife’s ring. I clasped it between my hands and kneeled at the bed.

“I don’t know where to go with this,” I whispered. “If it were somebody else I’d tell them to suck it up and just get on with it. Let the man in, send Jacob to school, cash the ticket, and go about their life. But I just can’t do that. I don’t understand it. The ticket is proof that the extraordinary isn’t out of my reach. I don’t want to think that, but I do. There’s no other explanation. But why? Why did it happen to me?”

I remained kneeling, waiting for a response. Waiting for anything at all. I stayed perfectly still and listened to the quiet apartment. Jacob was picking at something and I could hear the fork twinkling against the plate. Other than that, complete silence. And then I felt it. It started as a slight tingle between my hands. The ring was growing warm. Not hot. Not enough to make me drop it but enough that I noticed the curved edges pressing against my palms. And then, without words, I understood.

It was my wife. She was the reason I won the lottery. I couldn’t articulate it if I had a thousand years to try, but I knew it was her. It wasn’t luck. It wasn’t chance. It was a gift. And this gift had no circumstances surrounding it that could be extrapolated to apply to the odds of a car accident or the chances of random violence. The anxiety that had filled me since first hearing the winning numbers melted away and I knew what I had to do.

I put the ring back in the drawer and grabbed the lottery ticket. With a straight back I walked to the door and swung it open. Damon Ball was on the phone but he quickly returned it to his pocket when he saw me standing in the doorway.

“You want an explanation of why my son hasn’t been to school? Here you go.” I showed him the ticket.

“I don’t understand.”

“Have you seen the news stories about the winner of the lottery? How he hasn’t come forward?”

He nodded.

“You’re looking at him.”

He was quiet for a moment. He stared into my eyes, waiting.

“We’re moving. That’s why I’ve been keeping him home. We’re getting ready to go and I wanted to ease him into it. That’s also why I haven’t gone to work. I haven’t claimed it yet because I don’t want to make a big deal before I’m sure Jacob is ready.”

He stayed quiet for another moment before nodding. “Okay, Mr. Thorn. I’m not going to close this quite yet but once I see you claim that ticket, I’ll have no choice.” He glanced inside the apartment at Jacob, sitting happily at the table. “You two have a good night.”

The rest of the night fast-forwarded itself until Jacob had gone to bed. My melted anxiety gave me the energy of a week-long nap. Beyond that, I felt my wife for the first time in years. She was there with me in the bedroom. She had crossed over and once I was alone, I was sure I could get her to come back. This thought excited me far more than the millions I had sitting in the desk drawer.

I stepped outside. It felt as if the world had been gifted back to me after the last two weeks of hiding from it. No cars would be jumping the curb. No earthquakes would drag me into the soil. I breathed deep and felt my clear chest releasing the air, and then I walked inside to speak to my wife. I grabbed her ring from the desk drawer and knelt beside the bed.

I focused on the ring, waiting for it to regain the heat I had felt earlier in the night. But after what felt like a few minutes, the ring remained cold.

Another ten confused minutes passed and nothing happened. I stood up and sat on the bed. I stared at the ring in my open palm. Had I imagined the whole thing? Maybe in my excitement and nervousness I misinterpreted the pressure as heat.

Just then, I heard the faint engine of a plane above me. I started thinking about the possibility of it not only crashing, but crashing through the ceiling directly above me. My hands started shaking and my heart rate jumped. The anxiety in my chest started to grow and I felt like I needed to go for a run to release the energy but the thought of being on the sidewalk only made it worse.

No. I told myself to stop. I focused on the ring and the warmth I felt before. I didn’t care if it was real or imagined. It brought a sense of calm that I needed if I were to go about my days in a normal manner. If I could just make myself believe it, then it would be true enough. The total validity of the situation was pointless. The only thing that mattered was the way I looked at it, and that was a decision. I chose to believe my wife helped me. She made the numbers match, not me, and that’s why I didn’t need to be afraid of my luck. There was none to speak of.

 

Josh Rank graduated from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and has since had stories published in The Feathertale Review and Roadside Fiction. He lives in Los Angeles where he’s trying to eat his weight in burritos.