He guessed it would also be a relief. She had spent years with a splendid ball but no one to play catch with. And of course it was the same with him. For the first time since childhood—since Hallorann—he was sending as well as receiving.
“You’re right, it would be, but now’s not the time. You need to run through this whole thing again. The email you sent only hit the high spots.”
“Where should I start?”
“How about with your last name? Since I’m your honorary uncle, I probably should know.”
That made her laugh. Dan tried to keep a straight face and couldn’t. God help him, he liked her already.
“I’m Abra Rafaella Stone,” she said. Suddenly the laughter was gone. “I just hope the lady in the hat never finds that out.”
7
They sat together on the bench outside the library for forty-five minutes, with the autumn sun warm on their faces. For the first time in her life Abra felt unconditional pleasure—joy, even—in the talent that had always puzzled and sometimes terrified her. Thanks to this man, she even had a name for it: the shining. It was a good name, a comforting name, because she had always thought of it as a dark thing.
There was plenty to talk about—volumes of notes to compare—and they had hardly gotten started when a stout fiftyish woman in a tweed skirt came over to say hello. She looked at Dan with curiosity, but not untoward curiosity.
“Hi, Mrs. Gerard. This is my uncle Dan. I had Mrs. Gerard for Language Arts last year.”
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am. Dan Torrance.”
Mrs. Gerard took his offered hand and gave it a single no-nonsense pump. Abra could feel Dan—Uncle Dan—relaxing. That was good.
“Are you in the area, Mr. Torrance?”
“Just down the road, in Frazier. I work in the hospice there. Helen Rivington House?”
“Ah. That’s good work you do. Abra, have you read The Fixer yet? The Malamud novel I recommended?”
Abra looked glum. “It’s on my Nook—I got a gift card for my birthday—but I haven’t started it yet. It looks hard.”
“You’re ready for hard things,” Mrs. Gerard said. “More than ready. High school will be here sooner than you think, and then college. I suggest you get started today. Nice to have met you, Mr. Torrance. You have an extremely smart niece. But Abra—with brains comes responsibility.” She tapped Abra’s temple to emphasize this point, then mounted the library steps and went inside.
She turned to Dan. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“So far, so good,” Dan agreed. “Of course, if she talks to your parents . . .”
“She won’t. Mom’s in Boston, helping with my momo. She’s got cancer.”
“I’m very sorry to hear it. Is Momo your”
( grandmother)
( great-grandmother)
“Besides,” Abra said, “we’re not really lying about you being my uncle. In science last year, Mr. Staley told us that all humans share the same genetic plan. He said that the things that make us different are very small things. Did you know that we share something like ninety-nine percent of our genetic makeup with dogs?”
“No,” Dan said, “but it explains why Alpo has always looked so good to me.”
She laughed. “So you could be my uncle or cousin or whatever. All I’m saying.”
“That’s Abra’s theory of relativity, is it?”
“I guess so. And do we need the same color eyes or hairline to be related? We’ve got something else in common that hardly anyone has. That makes us a special kind of relatives. Do you think it’s a gene, like the one for blue eyes or red hair? And by the way, did you know that Scotland has the highest ratio of people with red hair?”
“I didn’t,” Dan said. “You’re a font of information.”
Her smile faded a little. “Is that a put-down?”
“Not at all. I guess the shining might be a gene, but I really don’t think so. I think it’s unquantifiable.”
“Does that mean you can’t figure it out? Like God and heaven and stuff like that?”
“Yes.” He found himself thinking of Charlie Hayes, and all those before and after Charlie whom he’d seen out of this world in his Doctor Sleep persona. Some people called the moment of death passing on. Dan liked that, because it seemed just about right. When you saw men and women pass on before your eyes—leaving the Teenytown people called reality for some Cloud Gap of an afterlife—it changed your way of thinking. For those in mortal extremis, it was the world that was passing on. In those gateway moments, Dan had always felt in the presence of some not-quite-seen enormity. They slept, they woke, they went somewhere. They went on. He’d had reason to believe that, even as a child.
“What are you thinking?” Abra asked. “I can see it, but I don’t understand it. And I want to.”
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said.
“It was partly about the ghostie people, wasn’t it? I saw them once, on the little train in Frazier. It was a dream but I think it was real.”
His eyes widened. “Did you really?”