The young boy looked up at his father. The egg in his hand was still quite warm as he held it close, the same way he had been holding it for the last hour.

“Are you sure there is an animal in here?”

The father had no doubt that there was a duckling inside the egg. He had kept the deceased mother’s eggs in an incubator with a watchful eye. He kept track of the time and of the temperature making sure everything was just right for the eggs to hatch. The father had measured out a proper pool and purchased enough food and minnows to nurse these ducklings until they could be released into the wild. It was the father’s plan to make sure his boy understood how to care for these little ones.

“I’m very sure. Given a little more time, even while you’re holding that egg in your hands, the baby duck will break through its shell.”

The boys face was a mixture of nervousness and delight.

“And I can keep it?” he asked with reserved excitement.

“You can keep it for a little while. We’ll watch over all of them together.”

The father was very happy to see the boy excited to nurture the ducks. After what had happened to the mother, he hoped the boy had learned something important. The father had warned him he would be hurt if he and his friends were to throw big rocks off of the bridge. It was one of the few rules the father had given the children. The boy only thought that meant he would get spanked for disobeying, but after the rock fell through the air he understood just what the father meant about being hurt.

The boy had been a good child, though he had his bad days. The day when he played on the bridge was his worst day. He had been nauseous when he spoke to his father. He knew he had to tell him because as soon as he heard the water all he could think about were the little animal books his father had read to him when he was a much smaller child. The books had taught the boy about caring for all of nature and taught him how the animals would run, and swim, and talk with each other. What he had done that day on the bridge was a crushing blow. It taught him about his own character, that he could forget all he knew for that single second.

The son held up his egg to his father, “And this one will like me?”

“I’m sure it will.”

When the child came trembling, with gurgled breath and stammering speech, the father knew that something terrible had happened. He was a good father and knew how to speak to his child. He simply listened. The boy told him what had happened, and in the throes of devastation, the child managed to reveal every fine detail of the incident. As he came to the critical moment in the story, every other word the child spoke was “I don’t know why I did it, I’m sorry, please help me!”

The father took the boy in his arms and told him that he would help. He put his coat on and brought the boy with him as they walked out the backdoor and down to the river. The boy couldn’t raise his head as they drew nearer to the bridge. But the father knew what was going on in his child’s mind. The father began looking around the tall grasses on the bank and soon the boy realized what his father was looking for. He quickly began searching as well, wading into the cold water of the river where the cattails were growing. It was barely a minute before he called out to his father. The reeds on the bank parted a little bit and in the shallows the father picked up five beautiful little orbs; they were the duck eggs the mother had abandoned in her nest.

“You will have to be very gentle with them at first. But for now you can just keep warming the egg in your hands. Today it will hatch.”

“I can be gentle.” The boy somberly stared at the egg.

“They will love their home here. I know you will care for them, that’s why I made the pool and the nursery.”

The father had spent countless hours over the weekend building a place where the boy could spend time with the ducklings. After rescuing them from the river he learned everything he needed to know so that he could teach the boy about ducklings. Now all they could do was watch the incubator and stand anxiously by until the eggs hatched. The father’s main obstacle was the boy’s impatience, but he knew that that was to be expected.

Suddenly the boy’s eyes grew wide. His hands drew closer to his chest. “It’s shaking! Is it hatching now?”

That father smiled and laughed with his son. “Yes! It looks like the little duckling is ready to meet you.”

“And it won’t be able to tell, will it?” The boy was still unsure of himself.

“No it won’t, that is the past. I built this place so that you could care for them. You love that duckling don’t you?”

The egg started to quiver in his hands again and the boy’s face lit up once more. “I do love these little ducklings.”

“Then have faith that you can care for them.”

As the father spoke, the two of them could hear the sound of chipping as the egg in the boy’s hand finally cracked and a little beak emerged from the shell.

The father watched with pride as the boy looked down at the tiny duckling, tears welling in his eyes.

“You’re my little duck now, okay?”