Summer of Riley

“It was funny about the fishpond. While it lay there, waiting, it was as if Grandpa would come back and I’d see him standing in it, his glasses all muddy, his baseball cap so dirty you could hardly see what color it was.”

William has a challenging time letting go of the fishpond because it is one of his last remaining links to his grandfather. By keeping the pond as it is—even though it is an incomplete eyesore—William can imagine that he still lives in a happier past, which has his grandfather in it.

“Mom says there are things between them that can’t be fixed and they’re happier apart. But what about me? Am I supposed to be happier without a dad?”

At the beginning of the novel, William struggles with Seeing Both Sides of an Argument. His parents’ separation does not make sense to him because he thinks about it only in terms of his own feelings, and he doesn’t like his father’s absence. William cannot fully internalize the idea that his parents have their own feelings and needs as individuals.

“I had this sudden sureness that Riley would always be beside me, ready to help me if I needed help. ‘You’re my dog,’ I whispered. ‘And you know something? If you need help, you’ll get it from me. Deal?’”

William and Riley bond instantly. William believes that Riley would save him no matter what, and he makes the same promise to his dog. This promise foreshadows the lengths that William will go to in the future to save Riley’s life.

“‘Maybe that’s one of the reasons people get dogs, to kind of close up the empty places inside them,’ Grace said. Sometimes Grace is very smart.”

Grace’s insight into the relationship between people and their dogs sheds light on William’s own feelings about Riley. William does not feel that time has helped him come to terms with his grief over his grandfather’s death, but having Riley has made a big difference to his emotional state.

“It’s bad to eavesdrop. It’s sneaky and rotten and sometimes you hear horrible things about yourself, which I guess serves you right. But sometimes it’s the only way to find things out.”

William knows that eavesdropping is wrong, but his parents do not tell him important information about his own life, so he feels he has no choice. These lines convey the helplessness of children who are often not involved in or informed about decisions that adults make about their lives. William demonstrates that he is capable of Seeing Both Sides of an Argument when he lays out the pros and cons of eavesdropping here.

“With a long rope, he could go in a sort of semicircle down to the gate. But it would still be awful for him. Awful. Cruel to chain a dog up like that. I wanted to cry.”

William knows that he is in an impossible situation. He is devoted to Riley and wants to find a solution that will keep him and Riley together while also ensuring the Sultan’s safety. He struggles to think of an option that does not seem cruel to Riley.

“All kinds of thoughts jumped through my head. No way. I wouldn’t let them take him. He was my dog.”

William demonstrates a childlike stubbornness in this passage. He is committed to The Power of Perseverance no matter what, even though some part of him does recognize the impossibility of his situation. At this point in the story, he is unable to accept the possibility of a future without Riley.

“I’ve noticed Dad and Mom talk to each other nicer when I’m around. It’s a kind of playacting. But when it’s just them, it’s totally different.”

William knows that his parents try to get along for his benefit. This is one of the many ways that his parents obscure the truth from him. It is harder for William to understand that his parents will not get back together when they do not trust him enough to tell him what is really going on between them.

“Mom looked up at me. ‘Honey, you know we see what we want to see. It’s, well, it’s kind of wishful thinking.’”

The tea leaves symbolize William’s hopes for Riley. Dorothy wants her son to have hope, but she also does not want him to be hurt if things do not work out the way he wants them to. She is negotiating a balancing act between protecting him from disappointment and pain and letting him remain hopeful.

“And then there was the bird. I wouldn’t let myself think that was wishful thinking. It was a sign and I believed it.”

William’s grief over his grandfather’s death is now compounded by his grief over losing Riley. In order to heal from both, he has to believe that there is hope, even though the future looks bleak. Saving Riley is his key to Navigating Change.

“I lay there thinking how hard it was to let go of the pond and I understood that was because it was my last link to Grandpa, in the way the Sultan was Peachie’s last link to her dead husband.”

William is able to see Peachie’s perspective when he considers his own feelings about his grandfather; here, he is Seeing Both Sides of an Argument. He is still angry with Peachie for jeopardizing Riley’s life, but he is able to understand why she feels so strongly about the Sultan. Peachie and William are character foils who have similar experiences and feelings.

“There are two sides to everything. And the one you’re on isn’t necessarily right.”

When William embarks on his campaign to save Riley, he realizes that everyone in town has an opinion on the matter, and not everyone agrees with him. The difficulty in Seeing Both Sides of an Argument, for William, is that he is completely convinced that he is right. His love for Riley clouds his ability to consider why some people might see Riley as a liability or a threat.

“I tried to sort out the muddle of my Peachie feelings. Of course I was still mad. But I couldn’t help remembering good things.”

William’s relationship with Peachie has become very complicated now that he has to reconcile his anger toward her with his happy memories. This quote shows that William is on his way toward a more mature perspective that will help him understand Peachie’s point of view.

“Everything was disappearing from me. It was scary. I felt emptied out.”

William is dealing with a lot of loss at once: He has lost his grandfather, his dog, and perhaps even his father, who has been growing increasingly distant. Grace’s earlier observation that dogs close up the empty spaces inside someone is astute. Without Riley around, William has a harder time coming to terms with loss.

“But I couldn’t get what had happened out of my mind. I suppose saving him had become a kind of game against Ellis and Duane and others, and I’d lost Riley in the need to win it.”

William has been fighting so hard to save Riley that he realizes that he has lost sight of his memory of his dog. He knows that it is important to keep the memory of loved ones alive, as he has done for his grandfather. In this moment, he reframes his goals and puts Riley’s memory and wellbeing at the center of his efforts.

“What was it Mom had said? ‘Your dad and I parted for good reasons. And for those good reasons we won’t be getting back together.’ What was it Peachie had said? ‘Sometimes you can’t go back.’”

William has started Navigating Change. This is a difficult and painful process, especially when it means coming to terms with grief. Both William’s mother and Peachie have helped him to accept that sometimes, moving forward and accepting change is the only option.

“Ellis was all shook up. This fear and shame has been building up in him. He was going to burst if he didn’t let it out.”

William’s mother offers valuable insight into Ellis’s actions. She is capable of Seeing Both Sides of an Argument, which allows her to explain Ellis’s behavior to her son. Unlike William, Dorothy extends compassion toward Ellis, realizing that he is dealing with a lot of painful emotions.

“I hugged him back when he hugged me. So maybe he wasn’t all ours anymore. But he wasn’t all the way gone from us either.”

William begins to reconcile his feelings about his father, accepting that while things are different between them, their relationship does not have to be completely over. This is an important step on William’s journey of Navigating Change.

“So my dog was going to live. Not with me. But he was going to live. I’d told Mom, way back, that was all I wanted. And that’s what I told myself again.”

The ending of William’s quest is bittersweet: He succeeds in saving Riley’s life, but they cannot live together anymore. It is a sign of William’s maturity and selflessness that he is able to accept this outcome and prioritize Riley’s quality of life over his own desire to keep his dog.

“And when something’s over, it hardly ever comes again. You just have to go along with it.”

At the conclusion of the novel, William proves that he is capable of Navigating Change. He is able to let go of the past and accept that some changes, however painful, are inevitable. By losing Riley—but saving him from euthanasia—William has become attuned to the complex process of healing from grief.

“I looked beyond it at the hole in the grass that would never be anything but a hole. Our fishpond was over, too. And I had to accept that. But knowing that I had to didn’t mean that I’d be forgetting Grandpa, did it? I never, ever would. Just like accepting that Riley was gone didn’t mean I’d forget him.”

William finally recognizes that letting go of his grief about his grandfather’s death does not mean forgetting him. He can maintain his happy memories of his grandfather while still accepting that he is not going to come back. The fishpond is a clear symbol of this process for William.

“Already I knew he was going to be a part of our family…not a dad to me exactly, because I still had a dad. But a good friend. And that was okay, too.”

Stephen’s presence in William’s life has been at times confusing and frustrating, especially because nobody has explained the situation to William in any detail. William’s character development delivers him to a point where he is now able to let Stephen in and give him a chance.

“Things wouldn’t be the same when they came back because so much had changed. But I could work on it. I knew Peachie would want to, too.”

William has come to terms with everything that has happened, and he is now capable of Seeing Both Sides of an Argument. He understands where Peachie was coming from in her anger toward Riley and wants to repair their relationship going forward.