Midnight Thoughts on the Law of Probability

So this began just exactly as you'd expect: the pitch dark of three A.M., an unexpected noise, a knock like that of wood against wood. The noise woke us both, but it was C who said, "Did you hear that?" And then another noise, a kind of rustling though metallic, tinny, and C recognized it: the blinds. She sat up in bed, said in a panicky stage whisper, "I think I left the window unlocked."

This, an old habit made new: she'd been smoking on the roof again, crawling through our second floor window, late at night, to sit and smoke and look at the darkened fields and the far off mountain ridges and smoke, thinking whatever one thinks when one has decided to leave, is waiting through the long last two weeks before leaving. It's a habit I'd once put an end to. For a while I hadn't minded it, but soon I found it awful, the smell of smoke on her clothes, in her hair, the way it came through the window and into the carriage house, which I loved, which made me feel lucky, and it was bad for her – it would kill her one day, I told her that, of course I told her that. And sooner or later – I knew her after all, I knew these things about her – she would leave the window unlocked and then it was just a matter of chance. She had left it unlocked already, I was sure of it, since she'd started again, this crawling onto the roof at night to smoke. She'd want to go out there first thing in the morning sometimes, and I'd see her reach to undo the lock and then a look would cross her face, like she was surprised to find the window unlocked already, but she didn't say anything, and if I said something, she'd say back, "Things like that don't happen in the country. Nothing like that happens out here. Who's going to shimmy up a chestnut tree and crawl in through a second story window?" Shimmy – she actually said shimmy. So once I told her how my father had been awakened in the middle of the night by a flashlight shining in his eyes and a voice saying, "Don't worry, Dr. Reynolds, it's just me, Chief of Police Joe English" – he was the only cop in these parts, so of course he was the chief. And standing there, holding the flashlight's beam on my father's face, and my father covering his eyes with his arm, Chief of Police Joe English explained, "Your burglar alarm is going off, so I came up and let myself in through the back door and had a look around, but I didn't see anyone," and my father said, "You idiot. I don't have a burglar alarm." And okay, so that's a funny story, and it was a cop who'd come in through the open door and not a robber, but that was just a matter of chance, and there was a time when I could convince her of the danger of things with a gentle, funny story.

But not then, not in those long last weeks after she had signed a lease of her own and was waiting for the first of the month, and it was during those last weeks that we experienced the correction, the inevitable turn of chance – Probability demands that sooner or later you come up snake eyes – and it was a burglar breaking in and not the chief of police. And when it happened, when we both knew for certain that it was happening, she said in that stage whisper, "I think I left the window unlocked." But I didn't say anything about it. I lay there thinking of what to do. I thought about the things the burglar might take and I hoped he'd just take what he wanted and leave and then I could get out of bed and feel safe about...