Page 66 of The River Is Waiting

But later, after we all stand, say the Serenity Prayer, and start back to our units, Frank latches on to my shoulder and says, “What I was going to tell you before I got cut off is that hope is never going to sucker punch you.”

“No?”

“Uh-uh. If you give up hope, you become bitter. Cynical. You start saying to yourself, what’s the point? Next thing you know, you’re using again. So you want to keephopealive. Just be careful aboutexpectations. If youexpectthings to happen a certain way and they don’t, it can clobber you like a Mike Tyson left hook. Knock you right on your ass. My first wife? Bettina? Nice little Italian gal, sweet as anything. And true blue, or so I thought. But when I got out of here after my first bid, expecting us to pick up where we left off, thelastthing I expected was that she would have gotten herself a new man and had him change the locks.”

“Wow, that must have sucked,” I say. “Okay then. See you around.”

“What’s your name again, buddy? Sorry. I’m terrible with names.”

“It’s Corby,” I tell him, over my shoulder. I’m walking fast.

“Got it. You believe in God, Corey?”

I stop. What business is it of his? I tell him I’m on the fence.

“Okay. Agnostic then. Maybe yes, maybe no. You want both bases covered just in case, right?”

“Something like that,” I say. Who does he think he is? My spiritual guru?

“Think of it this way, Corey.”

“Corby,” I said.

“What?”

“My name’s Corby with ab, not Corey.”

“Okay, yeah. Like I said, when it comes to names… But think of it this way. Having hope is kind of likepraying. LikeaskingGod for something and hoping He’ll hear you. But if you have an expectation, it’s more like ademandthan a prayer. Like you’re saying, here’s what I expect, God, so make it happen for me. See? Like you’re the one who gets to give the orders.”

“All right,” I tell him. “Thanks. See you.” It annoys me that someone I’ve already decided I don’t like has just given me something useful to think about.

Back inside B Block, I’m trudging up the stairs to our tier when I’m hit with a memory of my father, my mother, and me at the dinner table. Iguess I was about twelve. He was going on as usual about how organized religion is a scam perpetrated on the gullible when Mom, who may or may not have been stoned, interrupted him to announce that she’d decided she’s agnostic.

“What’s that?” I asked, but neither of them answered me.

Snickering, Dad wanted to know wherethathad come from. “Agnostic, huh? You hedging your bets, Vicki? In case, after you die, you find yourself standing at the pearly gates instead of under the ground being worm food?” I remember him making finger quotes when he said “pearly gates.”

Mom said no, that wasn’t it at all. As far as an afterlife was concerned, her feeling wasque será, será. I’d sometimes hear her sing that song while she was dusting or making supper. She was agnostic, she said, because it was hard for her to accept that everything in life happened randomly—maybe some higher presence was ordering our lives by a design no human could understand.

Dad stood and said he’d lost his appetite. On his way out of the kitchen, he turned back to me. “Don’t listen to this, Corbin Junior,” he said. “It’s bullshit.”

I was, at the time, already a nonbeliever like my father, but emotionally I was on my mother’s side. “You and I are simpatico, Corby,” I remember her telling me one muggy summer day when she opened the freezer, took out a pair of Creamsicles, and handed me mine. When I asked her what “simpatico” meant, she said we were like two peas in a pod. “Same hazel eyes and chestnut-colored hair, same temperament. We both like to read and listen to music.” I reminded her that we both had won spelling bees in elementary school, too. Her prize had been a half-dollar-sized medal, mine a paperback copy ofTreasure Island. “That, too,” she said. “See? Simpatico.”

“Do you hate Dad?” I asked her.

She took a bite of her Creamsicle and shook her head. “Why? Do you?”

“No,” I said. “But sometimes yes.”

Shortly after that, my parents’ divorce was finalized and Mom turned Wiccan. Whenever she’d try to tell me about her new beliefs, I wouldn’tlisten. But the one thing I still remember is her explanation of something called the Law of Threefold Return. The gist of this was: whatever things you did in your life, good or bad, they would return to you with triple force. “When that happens to your father, he’s not going to know what hit him,” she said. I remember her looking genuinely worried for the ex-husband who had verbally and physically abused her. To lighten the mood, and maybe to mock her a little, I began singing that old John Lennon song.Instant karma’s gonna get you! Gonna knock you right on the head!She gave me a disappointed look and walked out of the room.

On Monday morning, I’m heading over to the barn when I hear, “Hey! Wait up!” I ignore him. My anger has diminished since Saturday, but I’m still determined to tell Cavagnero to find someone else to be Solomon’s work-time babysitter.

When he catches up, he asks me whether I’m going to the library this week. I remind him that, whether I am or not, he’s suspended. He says he knows, but he’s finished the books he checked out. Can I bring them back and check out some other ones for him? He reminds me he likes sci-fi. I don’t respond.

“Did you notice I’m on time today?” he asks.

I turn and face him. “Are you expecting me to congratulate you for something you should have been doing all along? Get more books for you? Instead of asking for favors and attaboys, how about an apology instead?”

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