Page 108 of The River Is Waiting

I’m still pondering the dream and my former patient’s appearance in it. Corby was one of the first inmates at Yates to succumb to the coronavirus. “Fagie Millman told me yesterday there have been four more deaths at the prison since then,” I tell Vikram. “The men there live in such close proximity that, until the vaccines they’re developing become available, they’re terribly vulnerable.”

“As we all are,” Vikram says. He looks at the clock, eats his last spoonful of egg, then stands and says he’d better get going. His university students are all on Zoom now, but he still likes to go to his office. He kisses my forehead and says he’ll return the DVD to the library and take out another on his way to work. “Any requests?” he asks.

“These are such sad times. Maybe a comedy.”

“I’ll look for one,” he says. “Wear your mask if you’re going out. Don’t forget.”

After I hear him drive off, I pour myself another cup of tea and go to the back window. One of my favorite things about our house is the view from here—the way our yard slopes down to the tall grass and then to the marsh where all manner of animals and birds gather. Last year when our grandson Rajesh came to stay with us, it was springtime. He scooped up tadpoles from the water and caught frogs. It took some time to convince him that they are the same—that one becomes the other.

A large bird in flight catches my eye. Ah, a great blue heron—a male, I think, perhaps the father of the family we watched last year. He’s carrying a stick in his bill, probably preparing a nest for his mate and their young that, later in the season, will hatch, be fed and defended against predators, then fledge and fly away. Vikram likes to observe these creatures’ habits with his binoculars. Last season, he saw one of the chicks fall from the nest, presumably to its death. The others, parent and siblings, were focused on feeding. Vikram says he was the only one who seemed to notice.

Well, enough bird-watching for now. Time for me to get dressed and ready for my nine o’clock Zoom appointment, then put on my mask and go out into the world.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Emily

June 2023

The letter arrives in a stack of other mail: a J.Jill catalog, the electric bill, pleas for donations to politicians and the Red Cross, and Maisie’sHighlightsmagazine. The envelope is addressed in pencil and the sender lives at a place called Phoenix House in New Britain. The cancellation stamp across the face of Chief Standing Bear says it was mailed the day before yesterday. The letter, also written in pencil, is littered with cross-outs and smudges.

Dear Emily,

I hope its okay to call you by your first name. I’m a better talker then a writer so sorry if this letter has alot of mistakes. My name is Manuel DellaVecchia (Manny for short). Corby and me were bunkies at Yates CI for almost three years. Maybe he mentioned me. First of all, I’m sorry for your loss. I know it’s late to say that but I didn’t know how to reach you while I was on the inside. I hope you and your daughter are doing good. I saw her in the visiting room once when she came with Corby’s mother. She looked so cute.

I’m living at a halfway house until Parole says I can leave the state. They have a computer in the office here that we can use. I got your address off of Google. I hope we can meet somewhere and talk.Corby’s death hit me hard. I have things I need to tell you about that you might not know. I feel like I owe it to him. I also have a few things of his that I would like you to have.

We could meet here where I live. Or I might be able to get a ride to your house if that’smore convenianteasier. Or I could meet you at the Westfarms mall. I work at Cinnabon there and get off at 4 p.m. If you want to get together and talk, the main number at Phoenix House is 860-229-5240. Have them ring the second floor. The phone’s in the hallway, so it might be a while before someone picks up. Say you want to speak to Manny in room 4. I hope to hear from you soon.

Yourstrulytruely,

Manny D

My first thought is: there’s no way I’m letting him come here! I don’t want to meet him at his group home either. Or drive to Westfarms for that matter, although I could do a little shopping, something I haven’t done since before the pandemic. Do I even want to hear what this guy has to say or see what he wants to give me? I’ve struggled for more than two years to move on from Corby’s death, and things have been going so well with Bryan that I’ve accepted his proposal. Bryan’s easygoing, owns his own business, doesn’t drink more than a beer now and then. No children of his own, but he and Maisie have really hit it off. And because his wife died unexpectedly, he understands about grief and the complicated feelings about moving on. Meeting with Corby’s cellmate at this point might be like reopening a wound that’s finally begun to heal. I’m leaning toward not calling him.

Still, when I reread this letter, I’m touched by it. Manny says he’s not much of a writer, which I can tell from all the mistakes, cross-outs, and smudges where he’s erased things and written over them. That effort is what moves me. What does he need to tell me?

How many times in the past two years have I thought about our finalconversation when I told Corby not to call me again? By the following week, my anger and disappointment had subsided and I was ready to talk again. But hedidn’tcall; he took me at my word. And then he got sick and died, no more words exchanged between us. So maybe I should meet with this Manny guy. Who better than his cellmate to fill in the gaps about what happened between the day I hung up on Corby and the day he died?

Over the next few days, I go back and forth. My mother is against my getting in contact with him; why upset the applecart? But Bryan says that hearing him out might be better than wondering what he was going to tell me. So I phone the number he gave me and ask them to ring the second floor. When someone picks up, I ask to speak to Manny. “You’re talking to him,” he says.

We agree to meet at the mall on Saturday after his shift is over. I’m nervous driving to Farmington, wondering now whether I should have taken Bryan up on his offer to come with me. When I get there, I pull into the Nordstrom garage where I’ve parked before. Unlike the other times I’ve come here, there are plenty of spaces to pick from—partly due to online shopping, no doubt, but partly, I’m guessing, the result of people’s coronavirus hangovers. I have a mask in my purse in case I need to put it on, but if Manny’s not wearing one, I won’t either.

Our plan is to meet at the central court’s seating area on the lower level. I see several shoppers chatting with one another, and one middle-aged man sitting by himself at a small table. “Emily?” He’s short, rounded, wearing his work clothes: tan cap, tan apron over an aqua golf shirt. He says he recognized me from the pictures Corby had. “Thanks for coming,” he says. “Hug?” His arms are extended so it would be awkward to refuse. He smells like cinnamon.

“Have a seat,” he says. There are two paper cups on the table and a large manila envelope. “Are you a tea drinker?” he asks. “I drink tea in the afternoon. I got you one, too. Is chai okay?” He seems nervous and I am, too.

I tell him chai is perfect. We sip our tea and exchange pleasantries. When he asks how Maisie’s doing, I show him a recent cell phone picture. “Gettingbig,” he says. His thin hair, strawberry-blondish, looks dyed. He’s wearing clear fingernail polish and a stud in one ear. “Do you want something to eat? A scone or something? A muffin?” I shake my head. What I want is for us to cut to the chase.

“What’s in the envelope?” I ask.

He pulls out a pencil sketch on legal-sized paper. “Corby drew this,” he says. “When he was getting ready to paint his mural.” In the drawing, three boys—two of them Black, one white—are tossing stones in the water. All three are smiling. The boy in the hoodie looks like that innocent kid down in Florida who was shot and killed by the neighborhood vigilante. “He did a bunch of those practice drawings, fifteen or twenty of them. I forget what he called them.”

“Studies,” I tell him.

“Yeah, studies. After he finished his mural, he started tossing them in the trash. I grabbed this one and another one that had me in it, floating down the river in an inner tube. I kept that one for myself, but I thought you should have this one. I don’t know who the other two are supposed to be, but the white kid was at Yates for a while. He had killed some dogs at a dog pound.”

“Solomon,” I say. “I saw him once when I visited. He was giving his stepmother a hard time, causing such a ruckus that the COs pulled him out kicking and screaming. Then they made the rest of us leave.”

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