Excerpt from The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As Emily sits down to eat, I feel a surge of guilt thinking back to a morning a few weeks earlier. Emily told me she and some of the other teachers were going to Fiesta's after school for drinks and an early dinner. "I'll be home by seven, seven thirty at the latest," she'd said. I reminded her that Friday is family night. "I'll have had them all day. Not to mention all week. Did it occur to you when you were making your plans that I might need a break?"

She gave my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. "I know you do, Corby, but Amber's really struggling right now. People have already RSVP'd to the wedding. She's been fitted for her dress. Their honeymoon is booked." Amber's a fellow teacher who was going to get married next month until her fiancé told her he was gay. "He completely blindsided her. She just really needs our support right now."

"And I don't?"

She stared at me, shaking her head. "If you're going to make a big deal about a couple of hours, then fine," she said. "I'll tell the others I can't make it."

"No, you go ahead, babe. Fiesta's, that Mexican place, right? Enjoy yourself. Have a margarita on me. What the hell? Have three or four. Get hammered."

She was almost out the door when she pivoted, her eyes flashing. "That's your thing, not mine." Touché.

She said goodbye to the kids but not to me. At the front window, I watched her get into her car, slam the door, and drive off. My regret kicked in a few minutes later—probably before she'd even pulled into the school parking lot. I texted her: Sorry I was being a jerk. Go out with the others and help your friend. No worries.

Her terse return text—K Thx—let me know she was still pissed, which, in turn, pissed me off all over again and made me feel justified in taking another Ativan to calm down. That was what that doctor prescribed them for, wasn't it?

Emily didn't get home that evening until after nine. I heard her in the kitchen before I saw her. "Hi, Corby," she called. "I got you an order of chicken enchiladas if you haven't eaten yet." I hadn't eaten but told her I had. "Okay, I'll put them in the fridge and you can have them tomorrow." She entered the living room with that tipsy glow she gets on the rare occasion when she has a second glass of wine, but her face deflated when she saw Niko asleep on my lap instead of in the crib. "He's sick," I said. "Earache."

She sat down on the couch beside us, stroked his hair, and asked whether I'd taken his temperature. "A hundred and one," I told her. The thermometer actually read one-hundred-point-four but I'd added the extra sixth-tenths of a degree. Yeah, I can be that small.

"Did you give him any Tylenol?"

I nodded. "About an hour ago. So how did group-therapy-with-nachos go?"

Instead of answering, she stood and picked up empties from the coffee table. She'd mentioned before that she doesn't like me drinking beer at night if I'm watching the kids, but she didn't call me on it that night. Her guilt was at a satisfactory level.

I'm sure Emily is keeping track of my nighttime beer consumption, but I'm confident she's unaware that I've started drinking the hard stuff during the day. Tuesday is when the recycling truck comes down our street, so I've begun hiding the empty liquor bottles until then. I wait until she leaves for school, then take them out of hiding and bring the blue box out to the curb, feeling embarrassed by the evidence of my growing reliance on alcohol but proud of myself for pulling off my daytime drinking deception. She knows I'm taking that prescription for my nerves, of course. In fact, she was the one who urged me to see someone because I'd become so edgy and sleep-deprived. What she doesn't know is that I've begun taking more than "one before bedtime and/or as needed."

I tell myself that "and/or as needed" is the loophole I can use if that doctor questions my need for an early refill. 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 once I get back to work. And okay, maybe I'm not looking for another position as hard as I was at the start, but I'll get back on the hunt soon.

Excerpted from The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb. Copyright © 2025 by Wally Lamb. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.