The Talisman

by Stephen King

they comforted each other as well as they could, and, as you probably know from your own bitter experience, that is never quite good enough.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, if he should lose his own son? For a moment that wet yellow smell—the empty-motel-smell,

It occurred to him dimly that you could only express your ownership of a thing in terms of how freely you could give it up . . . and then that thought passed.

“I loved your brother,” he said. “He saved my life. Except for Richard here, he was just about the best friend I ever had, I guess. I’m sorry he died.” “He’s in the moon now,” Wolf’s brother said. “He’ll be back. Everything goes away, Jack Sawyer, like the moon. Everything comes back, like the moon. Come on. Want to get away from this stinking place.”

Once, at the very beginning of his journey, he had for a shameful moment seen his mother as an old woman—a spent, exhausted old woman in a tea shop. As soon as he had recognized her, the illusion had dissipated, and Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer had been restored to her unaging self. For the real, the true Lily Cavanaugh could never have aged—she was eternally a blonde with a quick switchblade of a smile and a go-to-hell amusement in her face. This had been the Lily Cavanaugh whose picture on a billboard had strengthened her son’s heart.