Ellen Langas

What Are The Odds?

“And the kick is . . . good!” Mario clenched his fists, grimacing as the football cleaned the uprights with just 14 seconds left in the fourth quarter. Unless his team produced another hail Mary miracle, his bet just spiraled down the drain. He pulled out a worn black pebble-leather notebook tucked inside the Sunday paper on the sofa beside him. It served as his ledger, a history book of wagers won and lost. His thick fingers slid the elastic band from around the pages and turned to a page marked by a frayed black ribbon nearly at the end of the book. He penned, “minus $1,000” in a column and focused on the total. Five hundred dollars of his family’s $5,000 savings remained. The bets had always paid off, until they didn’t, and now their savings had all but vanished. What would he tell Annette?