THE WAIT

Two men tell stories of stalled lives, faith, failure, and forgiveness in Ribeiro’s novel.

Two middle-aged men are stranded in an aggressively bland waiting room with no clock, no door handle, and no explanation for why they’re there. Will, an irritable Los Angeles marketing executive suffering professional burnout, the fallout of a divorce, and a thoroughly lapsed Catholic conscience, wants answers immediately. Pete is an unnervingly serene semi-retired carpenter who appears content to wait. Between them is a tank containing a goldfish named Jonah, swimming around a toy treasure chest that opens and closes with mechanical regularity. As the men talk, the room becomes a confessional; Will recounts childhood bullying at Catholic school, the corrosive humiliation of divorce, and the way his faith curdled into anger (“Often, at night in bed, Will would desperately wish, even pray, that he could time-travel back to that moment with Jimmy Bonetti, and break his freaking (sorry, Lord) nose. That would change everything. He wished that wish for a very long time”). Pete’s story unfolds more obliquely—he descended into addiction before coming out on the other side supported by work, marriage, and rediscovered belief. Their rapport swings from comic to combative as the impossibility of escape becomes clear, forcing the men to confront their suspicion that this is more than just a waiting room and that their relationship is deeper than it first seemed. This is a story that questions what it might take to accept grace. The setting nods to Beckett, but the characters’ talk is peppered with references to Dodgers trivia, Monty Python, Star Wars, and consumer tech anxiety. Ribeiro’s dialogue-driven approach keeps the theology grounded in personality and pain, and the pop-cultural chatter demystifies belief rather than dilutes it (as a parable, the novel mostly succeeds by refusing solemnity). At times, the author leans a little too hard on the symbolism, but this brief book’s tight construction, humane curiosity, and willingness to let faith arrive through friction rather than platitudes give it real bite and a surprising measure of joy.

An affecting story of two men talking their way toward forgiveness.