One side effect of going to church every Tuesday and Thursday night was that you never got to see any of the good shows. Corinne only got to watch Must See TV when someone in her family was sick, or if their ride to church fell through.
On most Thursday nights, their ride would show up five to ten minutes into The Cosby Show. Corinne had watched the opening credits of The Cosby Show hundreds of times. She’d watched the Cosby kids grow up that way. But she never got to see them do anything.
“I’m a modern-day Sisyphus,” she told her mother.
“How does Jesus feel about false gods?” her mother replied.
“Sisyphus was mortal,” Corinne said. “Initially.”
Her mother was totally sincere when she talked like this. Sometimes Corinne wondered what her mother was like before she found God. Her dad said her mom used to be really into astrology and palm-reading. Corinne couldn’t imagine it. Her mom wouldn’t even say “Good luck” because luck was too close to magic. She wouldn’t let them watch The Smurfs.
Today was Thursday.
Which usually meant Corinne would take the bus home from school and have a couple of hours to herself before it was time to change into church clothes and watch the first ten minutes of The Cosby Show.
But instead she got called to the office in the middle of the afternoon.
Her mom was there to pick her up.