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

But the next day, things got better. We sat on the floor and played with the kids. Danced with them to that silly "Baby Shark" song. When they went down for their afternoon naps, we went back to bed and tried again—successfully, this time, for both of us. We cooked supper together, the twins watching us as they wandered around underfoot. Things have been better since then. The usual minor ups and downs but nothing more. Marriage is all about that seesaw ride, isn't it? We're okay.

Now Emily cuts two slices of French toast into bite-sized squares, dotting each piece with syrup. "Yum, yum, yum," she says, divvying up the finger food between the kids. I love watching her with them, more so when I'm feeling relaxed like this. Maisie resembles her mother: dark hair, dark eyes, Em's dad's Mediterranean complexion. At her twenty-four-month checkup, she was in the thirtieth percentile for both height and weight, so she's probably going to be petite like Emily. Niko's got my reddish hair and lighter skin tone; his height and weight are a little higher than average, the pediatrician said, but compared to his sister, he looks like a bruiser. Turning to me, Emily asks why the smoke alarm went off. I hold up the two burnt pieces I threw on the counter, dangling them like puppets. "Here you go," I say, sliding the new stuff from the pan onto a plate. "Be right back." I head to the bathroom and brush my teeth so she doesn't smell my breath. I wait half a minute or so, then flush and walk back into the kitchen. She asks me what I'm smiling about.

"What?"

"You're smiling. What are you thinking about?"

"What am I thinking about? I don't know. Nothing much." I'm smiling because, thanks to the rum and Ativan, I'm pleasantly buzzed.

Maisie, the more fastidious eater, finishes without making a mess, but her brother's bib is saturated with milk and he has somehow managed to get syrup in his left eyebrow. Half of his breakfast is on the floor. Emily looks at the clock, then starts cleaning up the mess. "You know something, kiddo?" she asks Niko. "I think Mommy and Daddy should get one of those Roomba things and program it to follow you around all day. Would you like that?" Without having any idea what she's talking about, he nods enthusiastically. I tell Emily to leave it, that I'll clean up. "That would be great," she says. "I'm running a little late." She heads back to the bathroom to brush her teeth and blow-dry her hair.

Just before she leaves for work, Emily addresses the twins. "Be good kiddos for Daddy and Grammy today. No naughty stuff, okay?" She models the correct response, a head nod, which they both mirror back to her.

"Too bad we can't get that in writing," I quip. The day before, Niko led his sister in a game of crayon-scribbling on the kitchen linoleum and it was a bitch to scour off those marks without scratching the surface, which I did anyway.

"Okay, I'm off," she says. "Wish I could stay home with you guys. Love you."

"Love you, too." I made sure to start the breakfast dishes when I saw she was about to leave. Better a sudsy-handed wave goodbye than a boozy kiss. "Have fun on your field trip." She's just finished a dinosaur unit with her third graders and is taking them to the Peabody Museum to see prehistoric bones and footprints.

"Good luck with those leads, babe," she says. "Maybe today's the day, huh?"

I shrug. "Maybe."

Theoretically, I'll be job hunting today, although, truth be told, I've pretty much surrendered to the status quo. When I hear Emily's car back down the driveway, then accelerate, I say, aloud to no one in particular, "There goes the family breadwinner." Then I reach up for the lobster pot, take it down, and refresh my coffee-and-Captain cocktail. Get the twins dressed and pack the diaper bag. "Guess what?" I tell them. "Today is a Grandma day." Maisie claps her hands, but Niko shakes his head and says, "No Gamma! No Gamma!"

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.