Summary
DECISIONS...
Imprisoned for the rape of Persephone Hadley, Callum sees a news article about a suspected mole in the L.M.—Jude must have been successful in outing Andrew Dorn. Callum thinks often of Lynette, musing that her way of dealing with trauma was better than the violent road he’d chosen. Jack, his guard who he has befriended, tells Callum that he has a visitor: Kamal Hadley. Kamal offers Callum a deal: he'll only spend eight to ten years in prison if he’ll just admit publicly that he kidnapped and raped Sephy. Callum, though conflicted at first, gives Kamal his decision.
Kamal barges into Sephy’s bedroom and gives her a similar deal: If she gets an abortion, he’ll make sure that Callum lives. Sephy argues that pressuring her into getting an abortion is wrong. She considers the fact that if Callum lives, they could have another child together in the future—but the choice is Callum’s life or their child’s. She knows what she’s going to do.
LOSING MY RELIGION...
On Callum’s last day, he plays cards with Jack. Sephy has been telling anyone who will listen that Callum didn’t rape her and that she loves him, but it was not enough to save Callum’s life. Callum asks Jack if he ever imagines their positions reversed—white-skinned people in charge, with dark-skinned people as the lower class. Callum imagines that noughts in charge would mean a world with an even playing field, a fair police force, an equal justice system… Jack reminds him that people are people, and people always find a way to mess up. Callum has faith that, with time, things will get better—but he doesn’t have time. Jack promises to deliver a letter from Callum to Sephy. As he walks to be hanged, Callum tries to treasure every remaining second of life. At first he thinks he shouldn’t call on God, since he never really believed in Him while he was alive, but he ends up praying to God that he doesn’t want to die. A bag is put over his head, and he hears Sephy shouting that she loves him. He uses his last breath before he is hanged to shout that he loves her, too.
Sephy looks at Callum’s hanging corpse and wonders if he heard her. She prays to God that he did—if God is up there.
The novel ends with a picture of a birth announcement: Callie Rose was born to Persephone Hadley and Callum McGregor (deceased), and Persephone wants it to be publicly known that her daughter will have Callum’s last name.
Analysis
The two final sections of Noughts & Crosses offer two final instances of parallelism. "DECISIONS..." consists exclusively of Kamal's offers to Callum, and then to Sephy, to commute Callum's death sentence in exchange for Sephy admitting to rape and getting an abortion. Though Kamal treats Callum and Sephy differently, his offer and their decisions are the same across these scenes. At the very end of the novel, both Callum and Sephy pray as Callum is hanged. Callum prays to God that he doesn't want to die. Sephy simply prays that Callum heard her tell him she loves him. She ends on the note "If you're up there. Somewhere." This echoes the section title "LOSING MY RELIGION..." and is an inverse to Callum's experience, where he begins by doubting God but ends up fervently thanking Him for letting him hear Sephy's voice before he dies.
The birth announcement that ends the book is in a different font from the rest of the text and has a solid outline, as if posted in a newspaper. Ending on a birth announcement, especially one presented as if it's a found object, gives a sense of objective finality to the novel. It contrasts strongly with the first-person, present-tense point of view of the final chapters, and it lets the reader know that the story continues after Callum's death.
Sephy and Callum independently choose their unborn child's life over Callum's. Perhaps this reflects Callum's hope that things will get better with time: He puts all of his hopes in Callie Rose, a half-Nought, half-Cross daughter who will be an important character in the remaining books in the Noughts & Crosses series.
