"Really."
They were silent for a time, looking out over the stillness of the lake, Hallorann just thinking. When he looked back at Danny, he saw that his eyes had filled with tears.
Putting an arm around him, he said, "What's this?"
"Nothing," Danny whispered.
"You're missin your dad, aren't you?"
Danny nodded. "You always know." One of the tears spilled from the corner of his right eye and trickled slowly down his cheek.
"We can't have any secrets," Hallorann agreed. "That's just how it is."
Looking at his pole, Danny said: "Sometimes I wish it had been me. It was my fault. All my fault."
Hallorann said, "You don't like to talk about it around your mom, do you?"
"No. She wants to forget it ever happened. So do I, but-"
"But you can't."
"No."
"Do you need to cry?"
The boy tried to answer, but the words were swallowed in a sob. He leaned his head against Hallorann's shoulder and wept, the tears now flooding down his face. Hallorann held him and said nothing. The boy would have to shed his tears again and again, he knew, and it was Danny's luck that he was still young enough to be able to do that. The tears that heal are also the tears that scald and scourge.
When he had quieted a little, Hallorann said, "You're gonna get over this. You don't think you are right now, but you will. You got the shi-"
"I wish I didn't!" Danny choked, his voice still thick with tears. "I wish I didn't have it!"
"But you do," Hallorann said quietly. "For better or worse. You didn't get no say, little boy. But the worst is over. You can use it to talk to me when things get rough. And if they get too rough, you just call me and I'll come."
"Even if I'm down in Maryland?"
"Even there."
They were quiet, watching Danny's bobber drift around thirty feet out from the end of the dock. Then Danny said, almost too low to be heard, "You'll be my friend?"
"As long as you want me."
The boy held him tight and Hallorann hugged him.
"Danny? You listen to me. I'm going to talk to you about it this once and never again this same way. There's some things no six-year-old boy in the world should have to be told, but the way things should be and the way things are hardly ever get together. The world's a hard place, Danny. It don't care. It don't hate you and me, but it don't love us, either. Terrible things happen in the world, and they're things no one can explain. Good people die in bad, painful ways and leave the folks that love them all alone. Sometimes it seems like it's only the bad people who stay healthy and prosper. The world don't love you, but your momma does and so do I. You're a good boy. You grieve for your daddy, and when you feel you have to cry over what happened to him, you go into a closet or under your covers and cry until it's all out of you again. That's what a good son has to do. But see that you get on. That's your job in this hard world, to keep your love alive and see that you get on, no matter what. Pull your act together and just go on."
"All right," Danny whispered. "I'll come see you again next summer if you want... if you don't mind. Next summer I'm going to be seven."
"And I'll be sixty-two. And I'm gonna hug your brains out your ears. But let's finish one summer before we get on to the next."
"Okay." He looked at Hallorann. "Dick?"
"Hmm?"
"You won't die for a long time, will you?"
"I'm sure not studyin on it. Are you?"
"No, sir. I-"
"You got a bite, sonny." He pointed. The red and white bobber had ducked under. It came up again glistening, and then went under again.
"Hey!" Danny gulped.
Wendy had come down and now joined them, standing in back of Danny. "What is it?" she asked. "Pickerel?"
"No, ma'am," Hallorann said, "I believe that's a pink whale."
The tip of the fishing rod bent. Danny pulled it back and a long fish, rainbow-colored, flashed up in a sunny, winking parabola, and disappeared again.
Danny reeled frantically, gulping.
"Help me, Dick! I got him! I got him! Help me!"
Hallorann laughed. "You're doin fine all by yourself, little man. I don't know if it's a pink whale or a trout, but it'll do. It'll do just fine."
He put an arm around Danny's shoulders and the boy reeled the fish in, little by little. Wendy sat down on Danny's other side and the three of them sat on the end of the dock in the afternoon sun.