The Ferryman

by Justin Cronin

It’s been my experience that a lot of human interaction comes down to just these sorts of exchanges, less an actual conversation than a form of parallel confession—the two parties performing their interior monologues, not really listening to each other but merely taking turns.

The woman was like cake frosting on a bar of iron.

“Want to hear my philosophy about situations like this?” “Not especially.” “It’s pretty straightforward. Something will happen, then something else will happen. Sounds dumb until you think about it.”

There is power in a name. It is through names that we bring all things into this world, and when they leave, it is names we carry with us, so they are never truly gone.

I’d never had a son and never would, or a younger brother to teach the ways of life, as Malcolm had taught me; and the thought came to me then that who we are to one another isn’t so easy to categorize after all: that fathers can be sons, and lovers friends, and daughters mothers, and that such words as these tell only half the story, maybe not even half.

I will give you childhood, so that you might know innocence. Age, so you will know the prize of youth. Children, so that you will care for the future. Toil, so that you will know the value of a day. The body’s failings, so that you will know its worth. Death, so that you will cherish the bittersweet beauty of life.