The River Is Waiting

by Wally Lamb

CHAPTER ONE April 27, 2017

Maisie was the alpha twin; Niko, who would learn to creep, walk, and say words after his sister did, was the beta. In the

I’m not too worried about my growing reliance on “better living through chemistry.” It’s just a stopgap thing until my situation turns around. It’s not like I’m addicted to benzos or booze. There was that DUI, but there were extenuating circumstances: namely that I lost my job that day. Everything will right itself

I’m Mr. Mom twenty-four seven for a couple of toddlers. By midafternoon, I was half in the bag. Emily and

CHAPTER TWO Summer 2005

CHAPTER THREE 2006–2013

CHAPTER FOUR April 27, 2017

CHAPTER FIVE

We sit around a table on cushioned chairs, the doctor on one side, the three of us across from him, Emily between her mother and me. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but your little guy didn’t make it. He died in the ambulance on the way here. By the time he got to the ER, there was nothing we could do for him.”

CHAPTER SIX

“You know what I think, Corby? I think you were most likely drinking and maybe drugging, too, this morning. I hope those blood test results will

CHAPTER SEVEN

Niko isn’t Niko anymore; he’s just Niko’s body.

That detective is clearly out to get me. They can make those blood test results say whatever they want them to.

As I begin to doze, I wonder what Mom thought when she saw that I’m hiding my liquor. She’s in on my secret now, I figure, but I’m glad she didn’t say anything.

CHAPTER EIGHT April 28, 2017

“Well, that must have made you crazy, huh? Your little boy is lying there, fighting for his life at that point. Right?” I nod. “You need to let his mother know, but you can’t reach her. It’s understandable that, at that point, your anxiety

Trump lies every time he opens his mouth and we all just shake our heads and let him get away with it.

It happened because the McNallys distracted me. How could I live with myself otherwise?

CHAPTER NINE

“Niko, what’s going to happen if I tell the truth? Will your mother leave me? Will I go to prison?” I deliver another punch, harder still. “But how can I live inside my skin if I keep lying about why you died? If I devalue your life like that?” I slam my knuckles

“I started drinking during the day a

while back. Liquor, not just beer. In the afternoon and the morning both, hiding the bottles from you. And I’ve been lying about looking for a job. I kind of gave up on that a while ago. Surrendered, I guess you’d say. And that prescription I got for my anxiety? I’ve been overdoing that, too. I think I may be addicted. I’m sorry.”

I tell her there’s no need. “You were right. I’d been drinking and drugging yesterday morning when I got in the car. That was why I didn’t check the back seat before I started backing up. Why he died. I guess you better arrest me.”

CHAPTER TEN May 5, 2017

Eight days after Niko’s death, I’m brought before the court on the charge of second-degree involuntary manslaughter due to operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and a controlled substance.

can be released on a Promise to Appear, but only after I’ve posted a $25,000 bond. He flips through a calendar and schedules my sentencing hearing for July twentieth—eleven weeks from today. “That’s almost twice the number of weeks we usually set for sentencing, but I want to see how successful you are at keeping up

May 8, 2017

CHAPTER ELEVEN May 9, 2017

Emily looks over at me and seems to be deliberating about whether or not to say it. She opens her mouth, closes it again, and then speaks. “I wondered if Corby might have been drinking during the day. It was only a hunch, but maybe I should have asked him about it. Confronted him about it. Maybe if I had…”

CHAPTER TWELVE July 26, 2017

July 27, 2017

CHAPTER THIRTEEN August 1, 2017

then to me. “Mr. Ledbetter, I sympathize with you and your family; you have all had to endure an unfathomable loss. Nevertheless, I cannot unhear Attorney Reitland’s argument that, in order for your little boy to have the justice to which he is entitled, the state must hold you accountable for the tragedy that resulted from your having broken the law. That said, I am not granting the prosecutor her request that you serve six years in prison. My decision is that you are to be incarcerated for a period of five years, suspended after three, and another three years. I will not mandate

CHAPTER FOURTEEN August 1, 2017 Day 1 of 1,095

CHAPTER FIFTEEN August 2017 Days 2–22 of 1,095

CHAPTER SIXTEEN August 2017 Days 23–28 of 1,095

I look around, but there isn’t much to see. Bare concrete walls, a thin plastic mattress on the cement floor. No sheet. I stare up at the bright-as-hell halogen lights overhead and the surveillance camera. Two cameras, actually. They’re watching me from more than one angle. I feel something

“Hey there, roomie,” Manny says. “Welcome back to the living.” When I ask him what’s going on, he fills me in on what I’ve missed. Pug is gone, transferred out of here, he says. Opening

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN September 2017 Days 47–48 of 1,095

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN September 2017 Day 53 of 1,095

“Mind if I ask you something?” Lester says. “How much time they give you for doing what you did?” When I say three years, a shadow creeps across his face. He goes back to reading his book. Not wanting our

CHAPTER NINETEEN October 2017 Days 66–87 of 1,095

Even before we became cellmates, Manny had appointed himself my Yates CI mentor. It’s not like I didn’t need some guidance back

“Doesn’t even finish what he’s saying when Gunnar stands up, grabs his tray, and says, ‘I have no problem complying when a white officer gives me a command, but I’m not taking orders from some spook wearing a sewn-on badge.’

So yeah, Manny’s helicopter-parenting me can be annoying sometimes, but at other times it feels kind of good to be taken care of. Other than my poker buddies, he’s the closest thing I’ve got to a friend in here. And like I said, he’s a whole hell of a lot better than Pug.

CHAPTER TWENTY November 2017 Days 94–95 of 1,095

Now it’s just me and Lester.

“Hey, what’s the deal with Lester?” I ask Javier. “What are you talking about?” “Last time I was here, he was friendly, talkative. But just now, I thought he was going to bite my head off.” Javier says he gets moody sometimes. Suffers from depression. “Why wouldn’t he get depressed with the kind of sentence they gave him? Fifty years? That’s a lifetime. Mrs. M says he’s gone to the parole board

Manny says he heard he was active in some Black liberation group back in the seventies. “A couple of their members held up an armored car and shot one of the guards. The guy died the next day. The way I heard it, they wanted to try Lester for murder along with the other two, but they couldn’t pin it on him. So they got him on something else.”