He lay in the darkness of Christmas morning, listening to Rachels breathing slow and deep, and he thought about the dead bird on the doorstep Churchs Christmas present to him. Keep me in mind, Dr. Creed. I was alive and then I was dead and now Im alive again. Ive made the circuit and Im here to tell you that you come out the other side with your purrbox broken and a taste for the hunt, Im here to tell you that a man grows what he can and tends it. Dont forget that, Dr. Creed, Im part of what your heart will grow now, theres your wife and your daughter and your son . . . and theres me. Remember the secret and tend your garden well. At some point Louis slept. 31 Their winter passed. Ellies faith in Santa Claus was restored temporarily at leastby the footprints in the hearth. Gage opened his presents splendidly, pausing every now and then to munch a particularly tastylooking piece of wrapping paper. And that year, both kids had decided by midafternoon that the boxes were more fun than the toys. The Crandalls came over on New Years Eve for Rachels eggnog, and Louis found himself mentally examining Norma. She had a pale and somehow transparent look that he had seen before. His grandmother would have said Norma was beginning to fail, and that was perhaps not such a bad word for it. All at once her hands, so swollen and misshapen by arthritis, seemed covered with liver Spots. Her hair looked thinner. The Crandalls went home around ten, and the Creeds saw the New Year in together in front of the TV. It was the last time Norma was in their house. Most of Louiss semester break was sloppy and rainy. In terms of heating costs, he was grateful for the thaw, but the weather was still depressing and dismal. He worked around the house, building bookshelves and cupboards for his wife, and a model Porsche in his study for himself. By the time classes resumed on January 23, Louis was happy to go back to the university. The flu finally arriveda fairly serious outbreak struck the campus less than a week after the spring semester had begun, and he had his hands fullhe found himself working ten and sometimes twelve hours a day and going home utterly whipped . . . but not really unhappy. The warm spell broke on January 29 with a roar. There was a blizzard followed by a week of numbing subzero weather. Louis was checking the mending broken arm of a young man who was hoping desperatelyand fruitlessly, in Louiss opinionthat he would be able to play baseball that spring when one of the candystripers poked her head in and told him his wife was on the telephone. Louis went into his office to take the call. Rachel was crying, and he was instantly alarmed. Ellie, he thought. Shes fallen off her sled and broken her arm. Or fractured her skull. He thought with alarm of the crazed fraternity boys and their toboggan. It isnt one of the kids, is it? he asked. Rachel? No, no, she said, crying harder. Not one of the kids. Its Norma, Lou. Norma Crandall. She died this morning. Around eight oclock, right after breakfast, Jud said. He came over to see if you were here and I told him youd left half an hour ago. He oh Lou, he just seemed so lost and so dazed . . . so old . . . thank God Ellie was gone and Gage is too young to understand . . . Louiss brow furrowed, and in spite of this terrible news he found it was Rachel his mind was going out to, seeking, trying to find. Because here it was again. Nothing you could quite put your finger on, because it was so much an overall attitudinal fix. That death was a secret, a terror, and it was to be kept from the children, above all to be kept from the children, the way that Victorian ladies and gentlemen had believed the nasty, grotty truth about sexual relations must be kept from the children. Jesus, he said. Was it her heart? I dont know, she said. She was no longer crying, but her voice was choked and hoarse. Could you come, Louis? Youre his friend, and I think he needs you. Youre his friend. Well I am, Louis thought with a small touch of surprise. I never expected to have an eightyyearold man for a buddy, but I guess I do. And then it occurred to him that they had better be friends, considering what was between them. And considering that, he supposed that Jud had known they were friends long before Louis had. Jud had stood by him on that one, and in spite of what had happened since, in spite of the mice, in spite of the birds, Louis felt that Juds decision had probably been the right one . . . or, if not the right one, at least the compassionate one. He would do what he could for Jud now, and if it meant being best man at the death of his wife, he would be that. On my way, he said and hung up. 32 It had not been a heart attack. It had been a cerebral accident, sudden and probably painless. When Louis called Steve Masterton that afternoon and told him what was going on, Steve said that he wouldnt mind going out just that way. Sometimes God dillies and dailies, Steve said, and sometimes He just points at you and tells you to hang up your jock. Rachel did not want to talk about it at all and would not allow Louis to talk to her of it. Ellie was not so much upset as she was surprised and interestedit was what Louis thought a thoroughly healthy six yearold reaction should be. She wanted to know if Mrs. Crandall had died with her eyes shut or open. Louis said he didnt know. Jud took hold as well as could have been expected, considering the fact that the lady had been sharing bed and board with him for almost sixty years. Louis found the old manand on this day he looked very much like an old man of eightythreesitting alone at the kitchen table, smoking a Chesterfield, drinking a bottle of beer, and staring blankly into the living room. He looked up when Louis came in and said, Well, shes gone, Louis. He said this in such a clear and matteroffact way that Louis thought it must not have really cleared through all the circuits yethadnt hit him yet where he lived. Then Juds mouth began to work and he covered his eyes with one arm. Louis went to him and put an arm around him. Jud gave in and wept. It had cleared the circuits, all right. Jud understood perfectly. His wife had died. Thats good, Louis said. Thats good, Jud, she would want you to cry a little, I think. Probably be pissed off if you didnt. He had started to cry a little himself. Jud hugged him tightly, and Louis hugged him back. Jud cried for ten minutes or so, and then the storm passed. Louis listened to the things Jud said then with great carehe listened as a doctor as well as a friend. He listened for any circularity in Juds conversation; he listened to see if Juds grasp of when was clear (no need to check him on where; that would prove nothing because for Jud Crandall the where had always been Ludlow, Maine); he listened most of all for any use of Normas name in the present tense. He found little or no sign that Jud was losing his grip. Louis was aware that it was not uncommon for two old married people to go almost handinhand, a month, a week, even a day apart. The shock, he supposed, or maybe even some deep inner urge to catch up with the one gone (that was a thought he would not have had before Church; he found that many of his thoughts concerning the spiritual and the supernatural had undergone a quiet but nonetheless deep seachange). His conclusion was that Jud was grieving hard but that he was still compos mentis. He sensed in Jud none of that transparent frailty that had seemed to surround Norma on New Years Eve, when the four of them had sat in the Creed living room, drinking eggnog. Jud brought him a beer from the fridge, his face still red and blotchy from crying. A bit early in the day, he said, but the suns over the yardarm somewhere in the world and under the circumstances . . . Say no more, Louis told him and opened the beer. He looked at Jud. Shall we drink to her? I guess we better, Jud said. You should have seen her when she was sixteen, Louis, coming back from church with her jacket unbuttoned . . . your eyes would have popped. She could have made the devil swear off drinking. Thank Christ she never asked me to do it. Louis nodded and raised his beer a little. To Norma, he said. Jud clinked his bottle against Louiss. He was crying again but he was also smiling. He nodded. May she have peace, and let there be no frigging arthritis wherever she is. Amen, Louis said, and they drank. It was the only time Louis saw Jud progress beyond a mild tipsiness, and even so he did not become incapacitated. He reminisced; a constant stream of warm memories and anecdotes, colorful and clear and sometimes arresting, flowed from him. Yet between the stories of the past, Jud dealt with the present in a way Louis could only admire; if it had been Rachel who had simply dropped dead after her grapefruit and morning cereal, he wondered if he could have done half so well. Jud called the BrookingsSmith Mortuary in Bangor and made as many of the arrangements as he could by telephone; he made an appointment to come in the following day and make the rest. Yes, he would have her embalmed; he wanted her in a dress, which he would provide; yes, he would pick out underwear; no, he did not want the mortuary to supply the special shoes which laced up the back. Would they have someone wash her hair? he asked. She washed it last on Monday night, and so it had been dirty when she died. He listened, and Louis, whose uncle had been in what those in the business called the quiet trade, knew the undertaker was telling Jud that a final wash and set was part of the service rendered. Jud nodded and thanked the man he was talking to, then listened again. Yes, he said, he would have her cosmeticized, but it was to be a lightly applied layer. Shes dead and people know it, he said, lighting a Chesterfield. No need to tart her up. The coffin would be closed during the funeral, he told the director with calm authority, but open during the visiting hours the day before. She was to be buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, where they had bought plots in 1951. He had the papers in hand and gave the mortician the plot number so that preparations could begin out there H101. He himself had H102, he told Louis later on. He hung up, looked at Louis, and said, Prettiest cemetery in the world is right there in Bangor, as far as Im concerned. Crack yourself another beer, if you want, Louis. All of this is going to take awhile. Louis was about to refusehe was feeling a little tiddlywhen a grotesque image arose unbidden behind his eyes Jud pulling Normas corpse on a pagan litter through the woods. Toward the Micmac burying ground beyond the Pet Sematary. It had the effect of a slap on him. Without a word, he got up and got another beer out of the fridge. Jud nodded at him and dialed the telephone again. By three that afternoon, when Louis went home for a sandwich and a bowl of soup, Jud had progressed a long way toward organizing his wifes final rites; he moved from one thing to the next like a man planning a dinner party of some importance. He called the North Ludlow Methodist Church, where the actual funeral would take place, and the Cemetery Administration Office at Mount Hope; these were both calls the undertaker at BrookingsSmith would be making, but Jud called first as a courtesy. It was a step few bereaved ever thought of . . . or if they thought of it, one they could rarely bring themselves to take. Louis admired Jud all the more for it. Later he called Normas few surviving relatives and his own, paging through an old and tattered address book with a leather cover to find the numbers. And between calls, he drank beer and remembered the past. Louis felt great admiration for him . . . and love? Yes, his heart confirmed. And love. When Ellie came down that night in her pajamas to be kissed, she asked Louis if Mrs. Crandall would go to heaven. She almost whispered the question to Louis, as if she understood it would be better if they were not overheard. Rachel was in the kitchen making a chicken pie, which she intended to take over to Jud the next day. Across the street, all the lights were on in the Crandall house. Cars were parked in Juds driveway and up and down the shoulder of the highway on that side for a hundred feet in either direction. The official viewing hours would be tomorrow, at the mortuary, but tonight people had come to comfort Jud as well as they could, and to help him remember, and to celebrate Normas passingwhat Jud had referred to once that afternoon as the foregoing. Between that house and this, a frigid February wind blew. The road was patched with black ice. The coldest part of the Maine winter was now upon them. Well, I dont really know, honey, Louis said, taking Ellie on his lap. On the TV, a running gunfight was in progress. A man spun and dropped, unremarked upon by either of them. Louis was awareuncomfortably sothat Ellie probably knew a hell of a lot more about Ronald McDonald and Spiderman and the Burger King than she did about Moses, Jesus, and St. Paul. She was the daughter of a woman who was a nonpracticing Jew and a man who was a lapsed Methodist, and he supposed her ideas about the whole spiritus mundi were of the vaguest sortnot myths, not dreams, but dreams of dreams. Its late for that, he thought randomly. Shes only five, but its late for that. Jesus Christ, it gets late so fast. But Ellie was looking at him, and he ought to say something. People believe all sorts of things about what happens to us when we die, he said. Some people think we go to heaven or hell. Some people believe were born again as little children Sure, carnation. Like what happened to Audrey Rose in that movie on TV. You never saw that! Rachel, he thought, would have her own cerebral accident if she thought Ellie had seen Audrey Rose. Marie told me at school, Ellie said. Marie was Ellies selfproclaimed best friend, a malnourished, dirty little girl who always looked as if she might be on the edge of impetigo, or ringworm, or perhaps even scurvy. Both Louis and Rachel encouraged the friendship as well as they could, but Rachel had once confessed to Louis that after Marie left, she always felt an urge to check Ellies head for flits and head lice. Louis had laughed and nodded. Maries mommy lets her watch all the shows. There was an implied criticism in this that Louis chose to ignore. Well, its reincarnation, but I guess youve got the idea. The Catholics believe in heaven and hell, but they also believe theres a place called limbo and one called purgatory. And the Hindus and Buddhists believe in Nirvana There was a shadow on the dining room wall. Rachel. Listening. Louis went on more slowly. There are probably lots more too. But what it comes down to, Ellie, is this no one knows. People say they know, but when they say that, what they mean is that they believe because of faith. Do you know what faith is? Well . . . Here we are, sitting in my chair, Louis said. Do you think my chair will still be here tomorrow? Yeah, sure. Then you have faith it will be here. As it so happens, I do, too. Faith is believing a thing will be, or is. Get it? Yes. Ellie nodded positively. But we dont know itll be here. After all, some crazed chair burglar might break in and take it, right? Ellie giggled. Louis smiled. We just have faith that wont happen. Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I dont believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they dont. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If we dont, its just blotto. The end. Like going to sleep? He considered this and then said, More like having ether, I think. Which do you have faith in, Daddy? The shadow on the wall moved and came to rest again. For most of his adult lifesince college days, he supposedhe had believed that death was the end. He had been present at many deathbeds and had never felt a soul bullet past him on its way to . . . wherever; hadnt this very thought occurred to him upon the death of Victor Pascow? He had agreed with his Psychology I teacher that the lifeafterlife experiences reported in scholarly journals and then vulgarized in the popular press probably indicated a lastditch mental stand against the onrush of deaththe endlessly inventive human mind, staving off insanity to the very end by constructing a hallucination of immortality. He had likewise agreed with an acquaintance in the dorm who had said, during an allnight bull session during Louiss sophomore year at Chicago, that the Bible was suspiciously full of miracles which had ceased almost completely during the age of rationality (totally ceased, he had said at first but had been forced backward at least one step by others who claimed with some authority that there were still plenty of weird things going on, little pockets of perplexity in a world that had become by and large a clean, welllighted placethere was, for instance, the Shroud of Turin, which had survived every effort to debunk it). So Christ brought Lazarus back from the dead, this acquaintancewho had gone on to become a highly thoughtof o.b. man in Dearborn, Michiganhad said. Thats fine with me. If I have to swallow it, I will. I mean, I had to buy the concept that the fetus of one twin can sometimes swallow the fetus of the other in utero, like some kind of unborn cannibal, and then show up with teeth in his testes or in his lungs twenty or thirty years later to prove that he did it, and I suppose if I can buy that I can buy anything. But I wanna see the death certificateyou dig what Im saying? Im not questioning that he came out of the tomb. But I wanna see the original death certificate. Im like Thomas saying hed only believe Jesus had risen when he could look through the nail holes and stick his hands in the guys side. As far as Im concerned, he was the real physician of the bunch, not Luke. No, he had never really believed in survival. At least, not until Church. I believe that we go on, he told his daughter slowly. But as to what its like, I have no opinion. It may be that its different for different people. It may be that you get what you believed all your life. But I believe we go on, and I believe that Mrs. Crandall is probably someplace where she can be happy. You have faith in that, Ellie said. It was not a question. She sounded awed. Louis smiled, a little pleased and a little embarrassed. I suppose so. And I have faith that its time for you to go to bed. Like ten minutes ago. He kissed her twice, once on the lips and once on the nose. Do you think animals go on? Yes, he said, without thinking, and for a moment he almost added, Especially cats. The words had actually trembled on his lips for a moment, and his skin felt gray and cold. Okay, she said and slid down. Gotta go kiss Mommy. Right on. He watched her go. At the dining room doorway, she turned back and said, I was really silly about Church that day, wasnt I? Crying like that. No, hon, he said. I dont think you were silly. If he died now, I could take it, she said and then seemed to consider the thought she had just spoken aloud, as if mildly startled. Then she said, as if agreeing with herself Sure I could. And went to find Rachel. Later, in bed, Rachel said, I heard what you were talking about with her. And you dont approve? Louis asked. He had decided that maybe it would be best to have this out, if that was what Rachel wanted. No, Rachel said, with a hesitance that was not much like her. No, Louis, its not like that. I just get . . . scared. And you know me. When I get scared, I get defensive. Louis could not remember ever hearing Rachel speak with such effort, and suddenly he felt more cautious than he had with Ellie earlier. He felt that he was in a mine field. Scared of what? Dying? Not myself, she said. I hardly even think of that . . . anymore. But when I was a kid, I thought of it a lot. Lost a lot of sleep. Dreamed of monsters coming to eat me up in my bed, and all of the monsters looked like my sister Zelda. Yes, Louis thought. Here it is; at last, after all the time weve been married, here it is. You dont talk about her much, he said. Rachel smiled and touched his face. Youre sweet, Louis. I never talk about her. I try never to think about her. I always assumed you had your reasons. I did. I do. She paused, thinking. I know she died . . . spinal meningitis . . . Spinal meningitis, she repeated. There are no pictures of her in the house anymore. Theres a picture of a young girl in your fathers In his study. Yes, I forgot that one. And my mother carries one in her wallet still, I think. She was two years older than I was. She caught it . . . and she was in the back bedroom . . . she was in the back bedroom like a dirty secret, Louis, she was dying in there, my sister died in the back bedroom and thats what she was, a dirty secretshe was always a dirty secret! Rachel suddenly broke down completely, and in the loud, rising quality of her sobs, Louis sensed the onset of hysteria and became alarmed. He reached for her and caught a shoulder, which was pulled away from him as soon as he touched it. He could feel the whisper of her nightdress under his fingertips. Rachelbabedont Dont tell me dont, she said. Dont stop me, Louis. Ive only got the strength to tell this once, and then I dont want to ever talk about it again. I probably wont sleep tonight as it is. Was it that horrible? he asked, knowing the answer already. It explained so much, and even things he had never connected before or only suspected vaguely suddenly came together in his mind, She had never attended a funeral with him, he realized not even that of Al Locke, a fellow med student who had been killed when his motorcycle had collided with a city bus. Al had been a regular visitor at their apartment, and Rachel had always liked him. Yet she had not gone to his funeral. She was sick that day, Louis remembered suddenly. Got the flu or something. Looked serious. But the next day she was okay again. After the funeral she was all right again, he corrected himself. He remembered thinking even then that her sickness might just be psychosomatic. It was horrible, all right. Worse than you can ever imagine. Louis, we watched her degenerate day by day, and there was nothing anyone could do. She was in constant pain. Her body seemed to shrivel . . . pull in on itself . . . her shoulders hunched up and her face pulled down until it was like a mask. Her hands were like birds feet. I had to feed her sometimes. I hated it, but I did it and never said boo about it. When the pain got bad enough, they started giving her drugsmild ones at first and then ones that would have left her a junkie if she had lived. But of course everyone knew she wasnt going to live. I guess thats why shes such a. . secret to all of us. Because we wanted her to die, Louis, we wished for her to die, and it wasnt just so she wouldnt feel any more pain, it was so we wouldnt feel any more pain, it was because she was starting to look like a monster, and she was starting to be a monster . . . oh Christ I know how awful that must sound . . . She put her face in her hands. Louis touched her gently. Rachel, it doesnt sound awful at all. It does! she cried. It does! It just sounds true, he said. Victims of long illnesses often become demanding, unpleasant monsters. The idea of the saintlike, longsuffering patient is a big romantic fiction. By the time the first set of sores crops up on a bedbound patients butt, he or shehas started to snipe and cut and spread the misery. They cant help it, but that doesnt help the people in the situation. She looked at him, amazed . . . almost hopeful. Then distrust stole back into her face. Youre making that up. He smiled grimly. Want me to show you the textbooks? How about the suicide statistics? Want to see those? In families where a terminal patient has been nursed at home, the suicide statistics spike right up into the stratosphere in the six months following the patients death. Suicide! They swallow pills, or sniff a pipe, or blow their brains out. Their hate . . . their weariness . . . their disgust . . . their sorrow . . . He shrugged and brought his closed fists gently together. The survivors start feeling as if theyd committed murder. So they step out. A crazy, wounded kind of relief had crept into Rachels puffy face. She was demanding . . . hateful. Sometimes shed piss in her bed deliberately. My mother would ask her if she wanted help getting to the bathroom . . . and later, when she couldnt get up anymore, if she wanted the bedpan . . . and Zelda would say no . . . and then shed piss the bed so my mother or my mother and I would have to change the sheets . . . and shed say it was an accident, but you could see the smile in her eyes, Louis. You could see it. The room always smelled of piss and her drugs she had bottles of some dope that smelled like Smith Brothers Wild Cherry cough drops and that smell was always there . . . some nights I wake up . . . even now I wake up and I think I can smell Wild Cherry cough drops . . . and I think . . . if Im not really awake . . . I think Is Zelda dead yet? Is she?. . . I think . . . Rachel caught her breath. Louis took her hand and she squeezed his fingers with savage, brilliant tightness. When we changed her you could see the way her back was twisting and knotting. Near the end, Louis, near the end it seemed like her . . . like her ass had somehow gotten all the way up to the middle of her back. Now Rachels wet eyes had taken on the glassy, horrified look of a child remembering a recurrent nightmare of terrible power. And sometimes shed touch me with her . . . her hands . . . her birdy hands . . . and sometimes Id almost scream and ask her not to, and once I spilled some of her soup on my arm when she touched my face and I burned myself and that time I did scream . . . and I cried and I could see the smile in her eyes then, too. Near the end the drugs stopped working. She was the one who would scream then, and none of us could remember the way she was before, not even my mother. She was just this foul, hateful, screaming thing in the back bedroom . . . our dirty secret. Rachel swallowed. Her throat clicked. My parents were gone when she finally . . . when she . . . you know, when she . . . With terrible, wrenching effort, Rachel brought it out. When she died, my parents were gone. They were gone but I was with her. It was Passover season, and they went out for a while to see some friends. Just for a few minutes. I was reading a magazine in the kitchen. Well, I was looking at it, anyway. I was waiting for it to be time to give her some more medicine because she was screaming. Shed been screaming ever since my folks left, almost. I couldnt read with her screaming that way. And then see . . . what happened was . . . well . . . Zelda stopped screaming. Louis, I was eight . . . bad dreams every night . . . I had started to think she hated me because my back was straight, because I didnt have the constant pain, because I could walk, because I was going to live . . . I started to imagine she wanted to kill me. Only, even now tonight, Louis, I dont really think it was all my imagination. I do think she hated me. I dont really think she would have killed me, but if she could have taken over my body some way . . . turned me out of it like in a fairy story . . . I think she would have done that. But when she stopped screaming, I went in to see if everything was all right . . . to see if she had fallen over on her side or slipped off her pillows. I got in and I looked at her and I thought she must have swallowed her own tongue and she was choking to death. LouisRachels voice rose again, teary and frighteningly childish, as if she were regressing, reliving the experienceLouis, I didnt know what to do! I was eight! No, of course you didnt, Louis said. He turned to her and hugged her, and Rachel gripped him with the panicky strength of a poor swimmer whose boat has suddenly overturned in the middle of a large lake. Did someone actually give you a hard time about it, babe? No, she said, no one blamed me. But nobody could make it better either. No one could change it. No one could make it an unhappening, Louis. She hadnt swallowed her tongue. She started making a sound, a kind of, I dont knowgaaaaaalike that In her distressed, total recall of that day she did a more than creditable imitation of the way her sister Zelda must have sounded, and Louiss mind Bashed to Victor Pascow. His grip on his wife tightened. and there was spit, spit coming down her chin Rachel, thats enough, he said, not quite steadily. I am aware of the symptoms. Im explaining, she said stubbornly. Im explaining why I cant go to poor Normas funeral, for one thing, and why we had that stupid fight that day Shhthats forgotten. Not by me, it isnt, she said. I remember it well, Louis. I remember it as well as I remember my sister Zelda choking to death in her bed on April 14, 1965. For a long moment there was silence in the room. I turned her over on her belly and thumped her back, Rachel went on at last. Its all I knew to do. Her feet were beating up and down . . . and her twisted legs . . . and I remember there was a sound like farting . . . I thought she was farting or I was, but it wasnt farts, it was the seams under both arms of my blouse ripping out when I turned her over. She started to . . . to convulse . . . and I saw that her face was turned sideways, turned into the pillows, and I thought, oh, shes choking, Zeldas choking, and theyll come home and say I murdered her by choking, theyll say you hated her, Rachel, and that was true, and theyll say you wanted her to be dead, and that was true too. Because, Louis, see, the first thought that went through my mind when she started to go up and down in the bed like that, I remember it, my first thought was Oh good, finally, Zeldas choking and this is going to be over. So I turned her over again and her face had gone black, Louis, and her eyes were bulging and her neck was swelled up. Then she died. I backed across the room. I guess I wanted to back out the door, but I hit the wall and a picture fell downit was a picture from one of the Oz books that Zelda liked before she got sick with the meningitis, when she was well, it was a picture of Oz the Great and Terrible, only Zelda always called him Oz the Gweat and Tewwible because she couldnt make that sound, and so she sounded like Elmer Fudd. My mother got that picture framed because . . . because Zelda liked it most of all Oz the Gweat and Tewwible . . . and it fell down and hit the floor and the glass in the frame shattered and I started to scream because I knew she was dead and I thought . . . I guess I thought it was her ghost, coming back to get me, and I knew that her ghost would hate me like she did, but her ghost wouldnt be stuck in bed, so I screamed . . . I screamed and I ran out of the house screaming Zeldas dead! Zeldas dead! Zeldas dead! And the neighbors . . . they came and they looked . . . they saw me running down the street with my blouse all ripped out under the arms . . . I was yelling Zeldas dead! Louis, and I guess maybe they thought I was crying but I think . . . I think maybe I was laughing, Louis. I think maybe thats what I was doing. If you were, I salute you for it, Louis said. You dont mean that, though, Rachel said with the utter surety of one who has been over a point and over it and over it. He let it go. He thought she might eventually get rid of this awful, rancid memory that had haunted her for so longmost of it, anywaybut never this part. Never completely.


Louis Creed was no psychiatrist, but he knew that there are rusty, halfburied things in the terrain of any life and that human beings seem compelled to go back to these things and pull at them, even though they cut. Tonight Rachel had pulled almost all of it out, like some grotesque and stinking rotten tooth, its crown black, its nerves infected, its roots fetid. It was out. Let that last noxious cell remain; if God was good it would remain dormant except in her deepest dreams. That she had been able to remove as much as she had was well nigh incredibleit did not just speak of her courage; it clarioned it. Louis was in awe of her. He felt like cheering. He sat up now and turned on the light. Yes, he said, I salute you for it. And if I needed another reason to . . . to really dislike your mother and father, Ive got it now. You never should have been left alone with her, Rachel. Never. Like a childthe child of eight she had been when this dirty, incredible thing had happenedshe reprimanded him, Lou, it was Passover season I dont care if it was judgment trump, Louis said with a sudden low and hoarse savagery that caused her to pull back a little. He was remembering the student nurses, those two candy stripers whose evil luck it had been to be in attendance on the morning Pascow had been brought in dying. One of them, a tough little lady named Carla Shavers, had returned the next day and had worked out so well that even Chariton was impressed. The other they had never seen again. Louis was not surprised and did not blame her. Where was the nurse? There should have been an R.N. in attendance . . . they went out, they actually went out and left an eightyearold kid in charge of her dying sister, who was probably clinically insane by then. Why? Because it was Passover season. And because elegant Dory Goldman couldnt stand the stink that particular morning and had to get away from it for just a little while. So Rachel got the duty. Right, friends and neighbors? Rachel got the duty. Eight years old, pigtails, middy blouse. Rachel got the duty. Rachel could stay and put up with the stink. What did they send her to Camp Sunset in Vermont for six weeks every year, if not to put up with the stink of her dying, insane sister? Ten new shirtandjumper combinations for Gage and six new dresses for Ellie and Ill pay your way through medical school if youll stay away from my daughter . . . but where was the overflowing checkbook when your daughter was dying of spinal meningitis and your other daughter was alone with her, you bastard? Where was the RfuckingN? Louis sat up, got out of bed. Where are you going? Rachel asked, alarmed. To get you a Valium. You know I dont Tonight you do, he said. She took the pill and then told him the rest. Her voice remained calm throughout. The tranquilizer was doing its job. The nextdoor neighbor had retrieved eightyearold Rachel from behind a tree where she was crouching and screaming Zeldas dead! over and over. Rachels nose had been bleeding. She had blood all over her. The same neighbor had called the ambulance and then her parents; after getting Rachels nosebleed stopped and calming her with a cup of hot tea and two aspirins, she was able to get the location of her parents out of herthey were visiting Mr. and Mrs. Cabron across town; Peter Cabron was an accountant in her fathers business. By that evening, great changes had taken place in the Goldman household. Zelda was gone. Her room had been cleaned and fumigated. All of the furniture was gone. The room was a bare box. Latermuch laterit had become Dory Goldmans sewing room. The first of the nightmares had come to Rachel that night, and when Rachel woke up at two oclock in the morning, screaming for her mother, she had been horrified to discover that she could barely get out of bed. Her back was in agony. She had strained it moving Zelda. In her spurt of adrenalinepowered strength, she had, after all, lifted Zelda with enough force to pull her own blouse apart. That she had strained herself trying to keep Zelda from choking was simple, obvious, elementarymydearWatson. To everyone, that was, except Rachel herself. Rachel had been sure that this was Zeldas revenge from beyond the grave. Zelda knew that Rachel was glad she was dead; Zelda knew that when Rachel burst from the house telling all and sundry Zeldas dead, Zeldas dead at the top of her voice, she had been laughing, not screaming; Zelda knew she had been murdered and so had given Rachel spinal meningitis, and soon Rachels back would start to twist and change and she too would have to lie in bed, slowly but surely turning into a monster, her hands hooking into claws. After a while she would begin screaming with the pain, as Zelda had done, and then she would start wetting the bed, and finally she would choke to death on her own tongue. It was Zeldas revenge. No one could talk Rachel out of this beliefnot her mother, her father, or Dr. Murray, who diagnosed a mild backsprain and then told Rachel brusquely (cruelly, someLouis, for instancewould have said) to stop behaving so badly. She ought to remember that her sister had just died, Dr. Murray told her; her parents were prostrate with grief and this was not the time for Rachel to make a childish play for attention. Only the slowly abating pain had been able to convince her that she was neither the victim of Zeldas supernatural vengeance nor Gods just punishment of the wicked. For months (or so she told Louis; it had actually been years, eight of them) afterward she would awaken from nightmares in which her sister died over and over again, and in the dark Rachels hands would fly to her back to make sure it was all right. In the frightful aftermath of these dreams she often thought that the closet door would bang open and Zelda would lurch out, blue and twisted, her eyes rolled up to shiny whites, her black tongue puffing out through her lips, her hands hooked into claws to murder the murderer cowering in her bed with her hands jammed into the small of her back . . . She had not attended Zeldas funeral or any funeral since. If youd told me this before, Louis said, it would have explained a hell of a lot. Lou, I couldnt, she said simply. She sounded very sleepy now. Since then Ive been . . . I guess a little phobic on the subject. Just a little phobic, Louis thought. Yeah, right. I cant . . . seem to help it. In my mind I know you're right, that death is perfectly naturalgood, evenbut what my mind knows and what happens . . . inside me. . Yeah, he said. That day I blew up at you, she said, I knew that Ellie was just crying over the idea . . . a way of getting used to it . . . but I couldnt help it. Im sorry, Louis. No apology needed, he said, stroking her hair. But what the hell, I accept it anyway, if itll make you feel better. She smiled. It does, you know. And I feel better. I feel as if I just sicked up something thats poisoned part of me for years. Maybe you have. Rachels eyes slipped closed and then opened again . slowly. And dont blame it all on my father, Louis. Please. That was a terrible time for them. The billsZeldas billswere skyhigh. My dad had missed his chance to expand into the suburbs, and the sales in the downtown store were off. On top of that, my mother was halfcrazy herself. Well, it all worked out. It was as if Zeldas death was the signal for good times to come around again. There had been a recession, but then the money loosened up and Daddy got his loan, and since then hes never looked back. But thats why theyve always been possessive of me, I think. Its not just because Im the only one left Its guilt, Louis said. Yes, I suppose. And you wont be mad at me if Im sick when they bury Norma? No, honey, I wont be mad. He paused and then took her hand. May I take Ellie? Her hand tightened in his. Oh, Louis, I dont know, she said. Shes so young Shes known where babies come from for a year or more, he reminded her again. She was quiet for a long time, looking up at the ceiling and biting her lips. If you think its best, she said finally. If you think it wont . . . wont hurt her. Come over here, Rachel, he said, and that night they slept backtostomach in Louiss bed, and when she woke up trembling in the middle of the night, the Valium worn off, he soothed her with his hands and whispered in her ear that everything was okay, and she slept again. 33 For manand womanis like the flowers in the valley, which bloom today and are tomorrow cast into the oven the time of man is but a season; it cometh, and so it passeth away. Let us pray. Ellie, resplendent in a navy blue dress bought especially for the occasion, dropped her head so abruptly that Louis, sitting next to her in the pew, heard her neck creak. Ellie had been in few churches, and of course it was her first funeral; the combination had awed her to unaccustomed silence. For Louis, it had been a rare occasion with his daughter. Mostly blinded by his love for her, as he was by his love for Gage, he rarely observed her in a detached way; but today he thought he was seeing what was almost a textbook case of the child nearing the end of lifes first great developmental stage; an organism of almost pure curiosity, storing up information madly in almost endless circuits. Ellie had been quiet even when Jud, looking strange but elegant in his black suit and laceup shoes (Louis believed it was the first time he had ever seen him in anything but loafers or green rubber boots), had bent over, kissed her, and said Glad you could come, honey. And I bet Norma is too. Ellie had gazed at him, wideeyed. Now the Methodist minister, Reverend Laughlin, was pronouncing the benediction, asking God to lift up His countenance upon them and give them peace. Will the pallbearers come forward? he asked. Louis started to rise, and Ellie halted him, tugging his arm frantically. She looked scared. Daddy! she stagewhispered. Where are you going? Im one of the pallbearers, honey, Louis said, sitting down beside her again for a moment and putting an arm around her shoulders. That means Im going to help carry Norma out. There are four of us that are going to do itme and two of Juds nephews and Normas brother. Where will I find you? Louis glanced down front. The other three pallbearers had assembled there, along with Jud. The rest of the congregation was filing out, some of them weeping. If you just go out on the steps, Ill meet you there, he said. All right, Ellie? Yes, she said. Just dont forget me. No, I wont. He got up again, and she tugged his hand again. Daddy? What, babe? Dont drop her, Ellie whispered. Louis joined the others, and Jud introduced him to the nephews, who were really second or third cousins . . . descendants of Juds fathers brother. They were big fellows in their twenties with a strong facial resemblance. Normas brother was somewhere in his late fifties, Louis guessed, and while the strain of a death in the family was on his face, he seemed to be bearing up well. Pleased to meet you all, Louis said. He felt a trifle uncomfortablean outsider in the family circle. They nodded at him. Ellie okay? Jud asked and nodded to her. She was lingering in the vestibule, watching. Sureshe just wants to make sure I dont go up in a puff of smoke, Louis thought and almost smiled. But then that thought called up another one Oz the Gweat and Tewwible. And the smile died. Yes, I think so, Louis said and raised a hand to her. She raised hers in return and went outside then in a swirl of navy blue dress. For a moment Louis was uneasily struck by how adult she looked. It was the sort of illusion, no matter how fleeting, that could give a man pause. You guys ready? one of the nephews asked. Louis nodded; so did Normas younger brother. Take it easy with her, Jud said. His voice had roughened. Then he turned away and walked slowly up the aisle with his head down. Louis moved to the back left corner of the steelgray American Eternal coffin Jud had chosen for his wife. He laid hold of his runner and the four of them slowly carried Normas coffin out into the bright still cold of February first. Someonethe church custodian, he supposedhad laid down a good bed of cinders over the slippery path of tamped snow. At the curb a Cadillac hearse idled white exhaust into the winter air. The funeral director and his husky son stood beside it, watching them, ready to lend a hand if anyone (her brother, perhaps) should slip or flag. Jud stood beside him and watched as they slid the coffin inside. Goodbye, Norma, he said and lit a cigarette. Ill see you in a while, old girl. Louis slipped an arm around Juds shoulders, and Normas brother stood close by on his other side, crowding the mortician and his son into the background. The burly nephews (or second cousins, or whatever they were) had already done a fade, the simple job of lifting and carrying done. They had grown distant from this part of the family; they had known the womans face from photographs and a few duty visits perhapslong afternoons spent in the parlor eating Normas cookies and drinking Juds beer, perhaps not really minding the old stories of times they had not lived through and people they had not known, but aware of things they could have been doing all the same (a car that could have been washed and Turtlewaxed, a league bowling practice, maybe just sitting around the TV and watching a boxing match with some friends), and glad to be away when the duty was done. Juds part of the family was in the past now, as far as they were concerned; it was like an eroded planetoid drifting away from the main mass, dwindling, little more than a speck. The past. Pictures in an album. Old stories told in rooms that perhaps seemed too hot to themthey were not old; there was no arthritis in their joints; their blood had not thinned. The past was runners to be gripped and hefted and later let go. After all, if the human body was an envelope to hold the human soulGods letters to the universeas most churches taught, then the American Eternal coffin was an envelope to hold the human body, and to these husky young cousins or nephews or whatever they were, the past was just a dead letter to be filed away. God save the past, Louis thought and shivered for no good reason other than that the day would come when he would be every bit unfamiliar to his own bloodhis own grandchildren if Ellie or Gage produced kids and he lived to see them. The focus shifted. Family lines degenerated. Young faces looking out of old photographs. God save the past, he thought again and tightened his grip around the old mans shoulders. The ushers put the flowers into the back of the hearse. The electric rear window rose and thumped home in its socket. Louis went back to where his daughter was, and they walked to the station wagon together, Louis holding Ellies arm so she wouldnt slip in her good shoes with the leather soles. Car engines were starting up. Why are they putting on their lights, Daddy? Ellie asked with mild wonder. Why are they putting on their lights in the middle of the day? They do it, Louis began and heard the thickness in his own voice, to honor the dead, Ellie. He pulled out the knob that turned on the wagons headlights. Come on. They were going home at last, the graveside ceremony over actually it was held at the small Mount Hope Chapel; no grave would be dug for Norma until springwhen Ellie suddenly burst into tears. Louis glanced at her, surprised but not particularly alarmed. Ellie, what is it? No more cookies, Ellie sobbed. She made the best oatmeal cookies I ever ate. But she wont make them anymore because shes dead. Daddy, why do people have to be dead? I dont really know, Louis said. To make room for all the new people, I guess. Little people like you and your brother Gage. Im never going to get married or do sex and have babies! Ellie declared, crying harder than ever. Then maybe itll never happen to me! Its awful! Its mmmean! But its an end to suffering, Louis said quietly. And as a doctor I see a lot of suffering. One of the reasons I wanted the job at the university was because I got sick of looking at it day in and day out. Young people quite often have pain . . . bad pain, even . . . but thats not quite the same as suffering. He paused. Believe it or not, honey, when people get very old, death doesnt always look so bad or so scary as it seems to you. And you have years and years and years ahead of you. Ellie cried, and then she sniffed, and then she stopped. Before they got home, she asked if she could play the radio. Louis said yes, and she found Shakin Stevens singing This Ole House on WACZ. Soon she was singing along. When they got home she went to her mother and prattled about the funeral; to Rachels credit, she listened quietly, sympathetically, and supportively . . . although Louis thought she looked pale and thoughtful. Then Ellie asked her if she knew how to make oatmeal cookies, and Rachel put away the piece of knitting shed been doing and rose at once, as if she had been waiting for this or something like it. Yes, she said. Want to make a batch? Yay! Ellie shouted. Can we really, Mom? We can if your father will watch Gage for an hour. Ill watch him, Louis said. With pleasure. Louis spent the evening reading and making notes on a long article in The Duquesne Medical Digest; the old controversy concerning dissolving sutures had begun again. In the small world of those relatively few humans on earth concerned with stitching minor wounds, it appeared to be as endless as that old psychological squabbling point, nature versus nurture. He intended writing a dissenting letter this very night, proving that the writers main contentions were specious, his case examples selfserving, his research almost criminally sloppy. In short, Louis was looking forwardwith high good humorto blowing the stupid fuck right off the map. He was hunting around in the study bookcase for his copy of Troutmans Treatment of Wounds when Rachel came halfway down the stairs. Coming up, Lou? Ill be a while. He glanced up at her. Everything all right? Theyre deep asleep, both of them. Louis looked at her closely. Them, yeah. Youre not. Im fine. Been reading. Youre okay? Really? Yes, she said and smiled. I love you, Louis. Love you too, babe. He glanced at the bookcase, and there was Troutman, right where he had been all along. Louis put his hand on the textbook. Church brought a rat into the house while you and Ellie were gone, she said and tried to smile. Yuck, what a mess. Jeez, Rachel, Im sorry. He hoped he did not sound as guilty as, at that moment, he felt. It was bad? Rachel sat down on the stairs. In her pink flannel nightgown, her face cleaned of makeup and her forehead shining, her hair tied back into a short ponytail with a rubber band, she looked like a child. I took care of it, she said, but do you know, I had to beat that dumb cat out the door with the vacuum cleaner attachment before it would stop guarding the . . . the corpse? It growled at me. Church never growled at me before in his life. He seems different lately. Do you think he might have distemper or something, Louis? No, Louis said slowly, but Ill take him to the vet, if you want. I guess its all right, she said and then looked at him nakedly. But would you come up? I just . . . I know youre working, but . . . Of course, he said, getting up as though it were nothing important at all. And, really, it wasntexcept he knew that now the letter would never be written because the parade has a way of moving on, and tomorrow would bring something new. But he had bought that rat, hadnt he? The rat that Church had brought in, surely clawed to bloody ribbons, its intestines dragging, its head perhaps gone. Yes. He had bought it. It was his rat. Lets go to bed, he said, turning off the lights. He and Rachel went up the stairs together. Louis put his arm around her waist and loved her the best he could . . . but even as he entered into her, hard and erect, he was listening to the winter whine outside the frosttraced windows, wondering about Church, the cat that used to belong to his daughter and now belonged to him, wondering where it was and what it was stalking or killing. The soil of a mans heart is stonier, he thought, and the wind sang its bitter black song, and not so many miles distant, Norma Crandall, who had once knitted his daughter and son matching caps, lay in her gray steel American Eternal coffin on a stone slab in a Mount Hope crypt; by now the white cotton the mortician would have used to stuff her cheeks would be turning black. 34 Ellie turned six. She came home from kindergarten on her birthday with a paper hat askew on her head, several pictures friends had drawn of her (in the best of them Ellie looked like a friendly scarecrow), and baleful stories about spankings in the schoolyard during recess. The flu epidemic passed. They had to send two students to the EMMC in Bangor, and Surrendra Hardu probably saved the life of one woefully sick freshman boy with the terrible name of Peter Humperton, who went into convulsions shortly after being admitted. Rachel developed a mild infatuation with the blond bag boy at the A  P in Brewer and rhapsodized to Louis at night about how packed his jeans looked. Its probably just toilet paper, she added. Squeeze it sometime, Louis suggested. If he screams, its probably not. Rachel had laughed until she cried. The blue, still, subzero miniseason of February passed and brought on the alternating rains and freezes of March, potholes, and those orange roadside signs which pay homage to the Great God BUMP. The immediate, personal, and most agonizing grief of Jud Crandall passed, that grief which the psychologists say begins about three days after the death of a loved one and holds hard from four to six weeks in most cases like that period of time New Englanders sometimes call deep winter. But time passes, and time welds one state of human feeling into another until they become something like a rainbow. Strong grief becomes a softer, more mellow grief; mellow grief becomes mourning; mourning at last becomes remembrancea process that may take from six months to three years and still be considered normal. The day of Gages first haircut came and passed, and when Louis saw his sons hair growing in darker, he joked about it and did his own mourningbut only in his heart. Spring came, and it stayed awhile. 35 Louis Creed came to believe that the last really happy day of his life was March 24, 1984. The things that were to come, poised above them like a killing sashweight, were still over seven weeks in the future, but looking over those seven weeks he found nothing which stood out with the same color. He supposed that even if none of those terrible things had happened, he would have remembered the day forever. Days which seem genuinely good good all the way throughare rare enough anyway, he thought. It might be that there was less than a month of really good ones in any natural mans life in the best of circumstances. It came to seem to Louis that God, in His infinite wisdom, seemed much more generous when it came to doling out pain. That day was a Saturday, and he was home minding Gage in the afternoon while Rachel and Ellie went after groceries. They had gone with Jud in his old and rattling 59 IH pickup not because the station wagon wasnt running but because the old man genuinely liked their company. Rachel asked Louis if he would be okay with Gage, and he told her that of course he would. He was glad to see her get out; after a winter in Maine, most of it in Ludlow, he thought that she needed all the getting out she could lay her hands on. She had been an unremittingly good sport about it, but she did seem to him to be getting a little stir crazy. Gage got up from his nap around two oclock, scratchy and out of sorts. He had discovered the Terrible Twos and made them his own. Louis tried several ineffectual gambits to amuse the kid, and Gage turned them all down. To make matters worse, the rotten kid had an enormous bowel movement, the artistic quality of which was not improved for Louis when he saw a blue marble sitting in the middle of it. It was one of Ellies marbles. The kid could have choked. He decided the marbles were going to go everything Gage got hold of went right to his mouthbut that decision, while undoubtedly laudable, didnt do a thing about keeping the kid amused until his mother got back. Louis listened to the early spring wind gust around the house, sending big blinkers of light and shadow across Mrs. Vintons field next door, and he suddenly thought of the Vulture he had bought on a whim five or six weeks before, while on his way home from the university. Had he bought twine as well? He had, by God! Gage! he said. Gage had found a green Crayola under the couch and was currently scribbling in one of Ellies favorite bookssomething else to feed the fires of sibling rivalry, Louis thought and grinned. If Ellie got really pissy about the scribbles Gage had managed to put in Where the Wild Things Are before Louis could get it away from him, Louis would simply mention the unique treasure he had uncovered in Gages Pampers. What! Gage responded smartly. He was talking pretty well now; Louis had decided the kid might actually be halfbright. You wanna go out? Wanna go out! Gage agreed excitedly. Wanna go out. Where my neeks, Daddy? This sentence, if reproduced phonetically, would have looked something like this Weh ma neeks, Dahdee? The translation was Where are my sneakers, Father? Louis was often struck by Gages speech, not because it was cute, but because he thought that small children all sounded like immigrants learning a foreign language in some helterskelter but fairly amiable way. He knew that babies make all the sounds the human voice box is capable of . . . the liquid trill that proves so difficult for firstyear French students, the glottal grunts and clicks of the Australian bush people, the thickened, abrupt consonants of German. They lose the capability as they learn English, and Louis wondered now (and not for the first time) if childhood was not more a period of forgetting than of learning. Gages neeks were finally found . . . they were also under the couch. One of Louiss other beliefs was that in families with small children, the area under living room couches begins after a while to develop a strong and mysterious electromagnetic force that eventually sucks in all sorts of littereverything from bottles and diaper pins to green Crayolas and old issues of Sesame Street magazine with food mouldering between the pages. Gages jacket, however, wasnt under the couchit was halfway down the stairs. His Red Sox cap, without which Gage refused to leave the house, was the most difficult of all to find because it was where it belongedin the closet. That was, naturally, the last place they looked. Where goin, Daddy? Gage asked companionably, giving his father his hand. Going over in Mrs. Vintons field, he said. Gonna go fly a kite, my man. Kiiiyte? Gage asked doubtfully. Youll like it, Louis said. Wait a minute, kiddo. They were in the garage now. Louis found his keyring, unlocked the little storage closet, and turned on the light. He rummaged through the closet and found the Vulture, still in its store bag with the sales slip stapled to it. He had bought it in the depths of midFebruary, when his soul had cried out for some hope. Dat? Gage asked. This was Gageese for Whatever in the world might you have there, Father? Its the kite, Louis said and pulled it out of the bag. Gage watched, interested, as Louis unfurled the Vulture, which spread its wings over perhaps five feet of tough plastic. Its bulgy, bloodshot eyes stared out at them from its small head atop its scrawny, pinkly naked neck. Birt! Gage yelled. Birt, Daddy! Got a birt! Yeah, its a bird, Louis agreed, slipping the sticks into the pockets at the back of the kite and rummaging again for the five hundred feet of kite twine that he had bought the same day. He looked back over his shoulder and repeated to Gage Youre gonna like it, big guy. Gage liked it. They took the kite over into Mrs. Vintons field and Louis got it up into the blowy lateMarch sky first shot, although he had not flown a kite since he was . . . what? Twelve? Nineteen years ago? God, that was horrible. Mrs. Vinton was a woman of almost Juds age but immeasurably more frail. She lived in a brick house at the head of her field, but now she came out only rarely. Behind the house, the field ended and the woods beganthe woods that led first to the Pet Sematary and then to the Micmac burying ground beyond it. Kites flyne, Daddy! Gage screamed. Yeah, look at it go! Louis bellowed back, laughing and excited. He payed out kite twine so fast that the string grew hot and branded thin fire across his palm. Look at that Vulture, Gage! Shes goin to beat shit! Beatshit! Gage cried and laughed, high and joyously. The sun sailed out from behind a fat gray spring cloud, and the temperature seemed to go up five degrees almost at once. They stood in the bright, unreliable warmth of March straining to be April in the high dead grass of Mrs. Vintons field; above them the Vulture soared up toward the blue, higher, its plastic wings spread taut against that steady current of air, still higher, and as he had done as a child, Louis felt himself going up to it, going into it, staring down as the world took on its actual shape, the one cartographers must see in their dreams; Mrs. Vintons field, as white and still as cobwebs following the retreat of the snow, not just a field now but a large parallelogram bounded by rock walls on two of its sides, and then the road at the bottom, a straight black seam, and the river valleythe Vulture saw it all with its soaring, bloodshot eyes. It saw the river like a cool gray band of steel, chunks of ice still floating in it; on the other side it saw Hampden, Newburgh, Winterport, with a ship at dock; perhaps it saw the St. Regis Mill at Bucksport below its steaming fume of cloud, or even lands end itself, where the Atlantic pounded the naked rock. Look at her go, Gage! Louis yelled, laughing. Gage was leaning so far back he was in danger of toppling over. A huge grin covered his face. He was waving to the kite. Louis got some slack and told Gage to hold out one of his hands. Gage did, not even looking around. He couldnt take his eyes from the kite, which swung and danced in the wind and raced its shadow back and forth across the field. Louis wound kite string twice around Gages hand and now he did look down, comically amazed at the strong tug and pull. What! he said. Youre flying it, Louis said. You got the hammer, my man. Its your kite. Gage flyne it? Cage said, as if asking not his father but himself for confirmation. He pulled the string experimentally; the kite nodded in the windy sky. Gage pulled the string harder; the kite swooped. Louis and his son laughed together. Gage reached out his free hand, groping, and Louis took it in his own. They stood together that way in the middle of Mrs. Vintons field, looking up at the Vulture. It was a moment with his son that Louis never forgot. As he had gone up and into the kite as a child himself, he now found himself going into Gage, his son. He felt himself shrink until he was within Gages tiny house, looking out of the windows that were his eyeslooking out at a world that was so huge and bright, a world where Mrs. Vintons field was nearly as big as the Bonneville Salt Flats, where the kite soared miles above him, the string drumming in his fist like a live thing as the wind blew around him, tumbling his hair. Kite flyne! Gage cried out to his father, and Louis put his arm around Cages shoulders and kissed the boys cheek, in which the wind had bloomed a wild rose. 1 love you, Gage, he saidit was between the two of them, and that was all right.


And Gage, who now had less than two months to live, laughed shrilly and joyously. Kite flyne! Kite flyne, Daddy! They were still flying the kite when Rachel and Ellie came home. He and Gage had gotten it so high that they had nearly run out the string, and the face of the Vulture had been lost; it was only a small black silhouette in the sky. Louis was glad to see the two of them, and be roared with laughter when Ellie dropped the string momentarily and chased it through the grass, catching it just before the tumbling, unraveling core tube gave up the last of its twine. But having them around also changed things a little, and he was not terribly sorry to go in when, twenty minutes later, Rachel said she believed Gage had had enough of the wind. She was afraid he would get a chill. So the kite was pulled back in, fighting for the sky at every turn of the twine, at last surrendering. Louis tucked it, black wings, buggy bloodshot eyes, and all, under his arm and imprisoned it in the storage closet again. That night Gage ate an enormous supper of hot dogs and beans, and while Rachel was dressing him in his Dr. Dentons for bed, Louis took Ellie aside and had a hearttoheart talk with her about leaving her marbles around. Under other circumstances, he might have ended up shouting at her because Ellie could turn quite haughtyinsulting, evenwhen accused of some mistake. It was only her way of dealing with criticism, but that did not keep it from infuriating Louis when she laid it on too thick or when he was particularly tired. But this night the kite flying had left him in a fine mood, and Ellie was inclined to be reasonable. She agreed to be more careful and then went downstairs to watch TV until 830, a Saturday indulgence she treasured. Okay, thats out of the way, and it might even do some good, Louis thought, not knowing that marbles were really not the problem, and chills were really not the problem, that a large Orinco truck was going to be the problem, that the road was going to be the problem . . . as Jud Crandall had warned them it might be on that first day of August.    He went upstairs that night about fifteen minutes after Cage had been put to bed. He found his son quiet but still awake, drinking the last of a bottle of milk and looking contemplatively up at the ceiling. Louis took one of Gages feet in one hand and raised it up. He kissed it, lowered it. Goodnight, Gage, he said. Kite flyne, Daddy, Gage said. It really did fly, didnt it? Louis said, and for no reason at all he felt tears behind his eyes. Right up to the sky, my man. Kite flyne, Cage said. Up to the kye. He rolled over on his side, closed his eyes, and slept. Just like that. Louis was stepping into the hail when he glanced back and saw yellowygreen, disembodied eyes staring out at him from Gages closet. The closet door was open . . . just a crack. His heart took a lurch into his throat, and his mouth pulled back and down in a grimace. He opened the closet door, thinking (Zelda its Zelda in the closet her black tongue puffing out between her lips) he wasnt sure what, but of course it was only Church, the cat was in the closet, and when it saw Louis it arched its back like a cat on a Halloween card. It hissed at him, its mouth partly open, revealing its needlesharp teeth. Get out of there, Louis whispered. Church hissed again. It did not move. Get out, I said. He picked up the first thing that came to hand in the litter of Gages toys, a bright plastic ChuggyChuggyChooChoo which in this dim light was the maroon color of dried blood. He brandished it at Church; the cat not only stood its ground but hissed again. And suddenly, without even thinking, Louis threw the toy at the cat, not playing, not goofing around; he pegged the toy at the cat as hard as he could, furious at it, and scared of it too, that it should hide here in the darkened closet of his sons room and refuse to leave, as if it had a right to be there. The toy locomotive struck the cat dead center. Church uttered a squawk and fled, displaying its usual grace by slamming into the door and almost falling over on its way out. Cage stirred, muttered something, shifted position, and was still again. Louis felt a little sick. There was sweat standing out in beads on his forehead. Louis? Rachel, from downstairs, sounding alarmed. Did Gage fall out of his crib? Hes fine, honey. Church knocked over a couple of his toys. Oh, all right. He feltirrationally or otherwisethe way he might have felt if he had looked in on his son and found a snake crawling over him or a big rat perched on the bookshelf over Gages crib. Of course it was irrational. But when it had hissed at him from the closet like that. (Zelda did you think Zelda did you think Oz the Gweat and Tewwible?) He closed Gages closet door, sweeping a number of toys back in with its moving foot. He listened to the tiny click of the latch. After a moments further hesitation, he turned the closets thumbbolt. He went back to Gages crib. In shifting around, the kid had kicked his two blankets down around his knees. Louis disentangled him, pulled the blankets up, and then merely stood there, watching his son, for a long time. PART TWO THE MICMAC BURYING GROUND When Jesus came to Bethany, he found that Lazarus had lain in the grave four days already. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she hurried to meet him. Lord, she said, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But now you are here, and I know that whatever you ask of God, God will grant. Jesus answered her Your brother shall rise again. JOHNS GOSPEL (paraphrase) Heyho, lets go. THE RAMONES 36 Its probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience. On the contrary, it seems that some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness fallsas little as one may like to admit it, human experience tends, in a good many ways, to support the idea that when the nightmare grows black enough, horror spawns horror, one coincidental evil begets other, often more deliberate evils, until finally blackness seems to cover everything. And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity goes almost without saying. At some point, it all starts to become rather funny. That may be the point at which sanity begins either to save itself or to buckle and break down; that point at which ones sense of humor begins to reassert itself. Louis Creed might have harbored such thoughts if he had been thinking rationally following the funeral of his son, Gage William Creed, on the seventeenth of May, but any rational thoughtor attempt at itceased at the funeral parlor, where a fistfight with his fatherinlaw (bad enough) resulted in an event even more terriblea final bit of outrageous gothic melodrama which shattered whatever remained of Rachels fragile selfcontrol. That days penny dreadful events were only complete when she was pulled, screaming, from the East Room of the BrookingsSmith Mortuary, where Gage lay in his closed coffin, and sedated in the foyer by Surrendra Hardu. The irony of it was that she would not have experienced that final episode at all, that extravagance of horror, one might say, if the fistfight between Louis Creed and Mr. Irwin Goldman of Dearborn had taken place at the morning visiting hours (10 to 1130 A.M.) instead of at the afternoon visiting hours (2 to 330 P.M.). Rachel had not been in attendance at the morning visiting hours; she simply had not been able to come. She sat at home with Jud Crandall and Steve Masterton. Louis had no idea how he ever could have gotten through the previous fortyeight hours or so without Jud and Steve. It was well for Louiswell for all three of the remaining family membersthat Steve had shown up as promptly as he had, because Louis was at least temporarily unable to make any kind of decision, even one so minor as giving his wife a shot to mute her deep grief. Louis hadnt even noticed that Rachel had apparently meant to go to the morning viewing in her housecoat, which she had misbuttoned. Her hair was uncombed, unwashed, tangled. Her eyes, blank brown orbits, bulged from sockets so sunken that they had almost become the eyes of a living skull. Her flesh was doughy. It hung from her face. She sat at the breakfast table that morning, munching unbuttered toast and talking in disjointed phrases that made no sense at all. At one point she had said abruptly, About that Winnebago you want to buy, Lou Louis had last spoken about buying a Winnebago in 1981. Louis only nodded and went on eating his own breakfast. He was having a bowl of Cocoa Bears. Cocoa Bears had been one of Gages favorite cereals, and this morning Louis wanted them. The taste of them was appalling, but he still wanted them. He was neatly turned out in his best suitnot black, he didnt have a black suit, but it was at least a deep charcoal gray. He had shaved, showered, and combed his hair. He looked fine, although he was lost in shock. Ellie was dressed in blue jeans and a yellow blouse. She had brought a picture to the breakfast table with her. This picture, an enlargement of a Polaroid Rachel had taken with the SX70 Louis and the kids had given her for her last birthday, showed Gage, grinning from the depths of his Sears skiparka, sitting on her Speedaway sled as Ellie pulled him. Rachel had caught Ellie looking back over her shoulder and smiling at Gage. Gage was grinning back at her. Ellie carried the picture, but she didnt talk much. Louis was unable to see the condition of either his wife or his daughter; he ate his breakfast and his mind replayed the accident over and over and over, except in this mindmovie the conclusion was different. In the mindmovie he was quicker, and all that happened was that Gage got a spanking for not stopping when they yelled. It was Steve who really saw how it was going with Rachel and with Ellie as well. He forbade Rachel to go to the morning viewing (although viewing was really a misnomer because of the closed coffin; if it was open, Louis thought, theyd all run screaming from the room, me included) and forbade Ellie to go at all. Rachel protested. Ellie only sat, silent and grave, with the picture of her and Gage in one hand. It was Steve who gave Rachel the shot she needed and who gave Ellie a teaspoon of a colorless liquid to drink. Ellie usually whined and protested about taking medicineany kind of medicinebut she drank this silently and without a grimace. By ten oclock that morning she was asleep in her bed (the picture of her and Gage still held in her hand) and Rachel was sitting in front of the television set, watching Wheel of Fortune. Her responses to Steves questions were slow. She was stoned, but her face had lost that thoughtful look of madness which had so worriedand frightenedthe P.A. when he came in that morning at a quarter past eight. Jud, of course, had made all the arrangements. He made them with the same calm efficiency that he had made them for his wife three months before. But it was Steve Masterton who took Louis aside just before Louis left for the funeral home. Ill see that shes there this afternoon, if she seems capable of handling it, he told Louis. Okay. The shot will have worn off by then. Your friend Mr. Crandall says hell stay with Ellie during the afternoon viewing hours Right. and play Monopoly or something with her Uhhuh. But Right. Steve stopped. They were standing in the garage, Churchs stomping ground, the place where he brought his dead birds and dead rats. The ones that Louis owned. Outside was May sunshine, and a robin bopped across the head of the driveway, as if it had important business somewhere. Maybe it did. Louis, Steve said, youve got to get hold of yourself. Louis looked at Steve, politely questioning. Not much of what Steve had said had gotten throughhe had been thinking that if he had been a little quicker he could have saved his sons life but a little of this last registered. I dont think youve noticed, Steve said, but Ellie isnt vocalizing. And Rachel has had such a bad shock that her very conception of time seems to have been twisted out of shape. Right! Louis said. More force in reply seemed to be indicated here. He wasnt sure why. Steve put a hand on Louiss shoulder. Lou, he said, they need you more now than they ever have in their life. More than they ever will again, maybe. Please, man . . . I can give your wife a shot, but . . . you . . . see, Louis, you gotta . . . oh, Christ, Louis, what a cockknocking, motherfucking mess this is! Louis saw with something like alarm that Steve was starting to cry. Sure, he said, and in his mind he saw Gage running across the lawn toward the road. They were yelling at Gage to come back, but he wouldntlately the game had been to run away from MommyDaddyand then they were chasing him, Louis quickly outdistancing Rachel, but Gage had a big lead, Gage was laughing, Gage was running away from Daddythat was the gameand Louis was closing the distance but too slowly, Gage was running down the mild slope of the lawn now to the verge of Route 15, and Louis prayed to God that Gage would fall down when little kids ran fast, they almost always fell down because a persons control over his legs didnt get really cool until he was maybe seven or eight. Louis prayed to God that Gage would fall down, fall down, yes, fall down bloody his nose crack his skull need stitches whatever, because now he could hear the drone of a truck coming toward them, one of those big tenwheelers that went back and forth endlessly between Bangor and the Orinco plant in Bucksport, and he had screamed Gages name then, and he believed that Gage had heard him and tried to stop. Gage seemed to realize that the game was over, that your parents didnt scream at you when it was just a game, and he had tried to put on the brakes, and by then the sound of the truck was very loud, the sound of it filled the world. It was thundering. Louis had thrown himself forward in a long flying tackle, his shadow tracking the ground beneath him as the shadow of the Vulture had tracked the white latewinter grass of Mrs. Vintons field that day in March, and he believed that the tips of his fingers had actually brushed the back of the light jacket Gage had been wearing, and then Gages forward motion had carried him out into the road, and the truck had been thunder, the truck had been sunlight on high chrome, the truck had been the deepthroated, shrieking bellow of an air horn, and that had been Saturday, that had been three days ago. Im okay, he said to Steve. I ought to go now. If you can get yourself together and help them, Steve said, swiping at his eyes with the arm of his jacket, youll be helping yourself too. The three of you have got to get through it together, Louis. Thats the only way. Thats all anybody knows. Thats right, Louis agreed, and in his mind it all started to happen again, only this time he leaped two feet farther right at the end, and snagged the back of Gages jacket, and none of this was happening. At the time the scene in the East Room happened, Ellie was pushing her Monopoly marker aimlesslyand silentlyaround the board with Jud Crandall. She shook the dice with one hand and clutched the Polaroid of her pulling Gage on her Speedaway sled with the other. Steve Masterton had decided it would be all right for Rachel to attend the afternoon viewingin light of later developments, it was a decision he came to deeply regret. The Goldmans had flown into Bangor that morning and were staying at the Holiday Inn. Her father had called four times by noon, and Steve had to be increasingly firmalmost threatening, by call fourwith the old man. Irwin Goldman wanted to come out and not all the dogs of hell could keep him from his daughter in her time of need, he said. Steve responded that Rachel needed this time before going to the funeral parlor to get over as much of her initial shock as she could. He didnt know about all the dogs of hell, he said, but he knew one SwedishAmerican physician's assistant that had no intention of allowing anyone into the Creed home until Rachel had appeared in public, of her own volition. After the viewing in the afternoon, Steve said, he would be more than happy to let the relatives support system take over. Until then, he wanted her left alone. The old man swore at him in Yiddish and banged the phone down at his end, breaking the connection. Steve waited to see if Goldman would indeed show up, but Goldman had apparently decided to wait. By noon Rachel did seem a little better. She was at least aware of the time frame she was in, and she had gone out to the kitchen to see if there were sandwich makings or anything for after. People would probably want to come back to the house after, wouldnt they? she asked Steve. Steve nodded. There was no bologna or cold roast beef, but there was a Butterball turkey in the freezer, and she put it on the drainboard to thaw. Steve looked into the kitchen a few minutes later and saw her standing by the sink, looking fixedly at the turkey on the drainboard and weeping. Rachel? She looked toward Steve. Gage really liked these. He especially liked the white meat. It was just occurring to me that he was never going to eat another Butterball turkey. Steve sent her upstairs to dressthe final test of her ability to cope, reallyand when she came down wearing a simple black dress belted at the waist and carrying a small black clutch bag (an evening bag, really), Steve decided she was all right, and Jud concurred. Steve drove her into town. He stood with Surrendra Hardu in the lobby of the East Room and watched Rachel drift down the aisle toward the flowerburied coffin like a wraith. How is it going, Steve? Surrendra asked quietly. Going fucking terrible, Steve said in a low, harsh voice. How did you think it was going? I thought it was probably going fucking terrible, Surrendra said and sighed. The trouble really began at the morning viewing, when Irwin Goldman refused to shake hands with his soninlaw. The sight of so many friends and relatives had actually forced Louis out of the web of shock a little, had forced him to notice what was going on and be outward. He had reached that stage of malleable grief that funeral directors are so used to handling and turning to its best advantage. Louis was moved around like a counter in a Parcheesi game. Outside the East Room was a small foyer where people could smoke and sit in overstuffed easy chairs. The chairs looked as if they might have come directly from a distress sale at some old English mens club that had gone broke. Beside the door leading into the viewing room was a small easel, black metal chased with gold, and on this easel was a small sign which said simply CAGE WILLIAM CREED. If you went across this spacious white building that looked misleadingly like a comfortable old house, you came to an identical foyer, this one outside the West Room, where the sign on the easel read ALBERTA BURNHAM NEDEAU. At the back of the house was the Riverfront Room. The easel to the left of the door between the foyer and this room was blank; it was not in use on this Tuesday morning. Downstairs was the coffin showroom, each model lit by a baby spotlight mounted on the ceiling. If you looked upLouis had, and the funeral director had frowned severely at himit looked as if there were a lot of strange animals roosting up there. Jud had come with him on Sunday, the day after Gage had died, to pick out a coffin. They had gone downstairs, and instead of immediately turning right into the coffin showroom, Louis, dazed, had continued straight on down the hallway toward a plain white swinging door, the sort you see communicating between restaurant dining rooms and the kitchen. Both Jud and the funeral director had said quickly and simultaneously, Not that way, and Louis had followed them away from that swinging door obediently. He knew what was behind that door though. His uncle had been an undertaker. The East Room was furnished with neat rows of folding chairsthe expensive ones with plushy seats and backs. At the front, in an area that seemed a combination nave and bower, was Cages coffin. Louis had picked the American Casket Companys rosewood modelEternal Rest, it was called. It was lined with plushy pink silk. The mortician agreed that it was really a beautiful coffin and apologized that he did not have one with a blue lining. Louis responded that he and Rachel had never made such distinctions. The mortician had nodded. The mortician asked Louis if he had thought about how he would defray the expenses of Cages funeral. If not, he said, he could take Louis into his office and quickly go over three of their more popular plans In Louiss mind, an announcer suddenly spoke up cheerfully I got my kids coffin free, for Raleigh coupons! Feeling like a creature in a dream, he said, Im going to pay for everything with my MasterCard. Fine, the mortician said. The coffin was no more than four feet longa dwarf coffin. Nonetheless its price was slightly over six hundred dollars. Louis supposed it rested on trestles, but the flowers made it difficult to see, and he hadnt wanted to go too close. The smell of all those flowers made him want to gag. At the head of the aisle, just inside the door giving onto the foyerlounge, was a book on a stand. Chained to the stand was a ballpoint pen. It was here that the funeral director positioned Louis, so he could greet his friends and relatives. The friends and relatives were supposed to sign the book with their names and addresses. Louis had never had the slightest idea what the purpose of this mad custom might be, and he did not ask now. He supposed that when the funeral was over, he and Rachel would get to keep the book. That seemed the maddest thing of all. Somewhere he had a high school yearbook and a college yearbook and a med school yearbook; there was also a wedding book, with MY WEDDING DAY stamped on the imitation leather in imitation gold leaf, beginning with a photo of Rachel trying on her bridal veil before the mirror that morning with her mothers help and ending with a photo of two pairs of shoes outside a closed hotel door. There was also a baby book for Ellie they had tired of adding to it rather quickly though; that one with its spaces for MY FIRST HAIRCUT (add a lock of babys hair) and WHOOPS! (add a picture of baby falling on her ass) had been just too relentlessly cute. Now, added to all the others, this one. What do we call it? Louis wondered as he stood numbly beside the stand waiting for the party to begin. MY DEATHBOOK? FUNERAL AUTOGRAPHS? THE DAY WE PLANTED GAGE? Or maybe something more dignified, like A DEATH IN THE FAMILY? He turned the book back to its cover, which, like the cover to the MY WEDDING DAY book, was imitation leather. The cover was blank. Almost predictably, Missy Dandridge had been the first to arrive that morning, goodhearted Missy who had sat with Ellie and Gage on dozens of occasions. Louis found himself remembering that it had been Missy who had taken the kids on the evening of the day Victor Pascow had died. She had taken the kids, and Rachel had made love to him, first in the tub, then in bed. Missy had been crying, crying hard, and at the sight of Louiss calm, still face, she burst into fresh tears and reached for him seemed to grope for him. Louis embraced her, realizing that this was the way it worked or the way it was supposed to work, anywaysome kind of human charge that went back and forth, loosening up the hard earth of loss, venting it, breaking up the rocky path of shock with the heat of sorrow. Im so sorry, Missy was saying, brushing her dark blond hair back from her pallid face. Such a dear sweet little boy. I loved him so much, Louis, Im so sorry, its an awful road, I hope they put that truck driver in jail forever, he was going much too fast, he was so sweet, so dear, so bright, why would Cod take Gage, I dont know, we cant understand, can we, but Im sorry, sorry, so sorry. Louis comforted her, held her and comforted her. He felt her tears on his collar, the press of her breasts against him. She wanted to know where Rachel was, and Louis told her that Rachel was resting. Missy promised to go see her and that she would sit with Ellie anytime, for as long as they needed her. Louis thanked her. She had started away, still sniffing, her eyes redder than ever above her black handkerchief. She was moving toward the coffin when Louis called her back. The funeral director, whose name Louis could not even remember, had told him to have them sign the book, and damned if he wasnt going to have them do it. Mystery guest, sign in please, he thought and came very close to going off into cackles of bright, hysterical laughter. It was Missys woeful, heartbroken eyes that drove the laughter away. Missy, would you sign the book? he asked her, and because something else seemed to be needed, he added, For Rachel. Of course, she said. Poor Louis and poor Rachel. And suddenly Louis knew what she was going to say next, and for some reason he dreaded it; yet it was coming, unavoidable, like a black bullet of a large caliber from a killers gun, and he knew that he would be struck over and over by this bullet in the next interminable ninety minutes, and then again in the afternoon, while the wounds of the morning were still trickling blood Thank God he didnt suffer, Louis. At least it was quick. Yes, it was quick, all right, he thought about saying to herah, how that would shatter her face all over again, and he felt a vicious urge to do it, to simply spray the words into her face. It was quick, no doubt about that, thats why the coffins closed, nothing could have been done about Gage even if Rachel and I approved of dressing up dead relatives in their best like department store mannequins and rouging and powdering and painting their faces. It was quick, Missymydear, one minute he was there on the road and the next minute he was lying in it, but way down by the Ringers house. It hit him and killed him and then it dragged him and you better believe it was quick. A hundred yards or more all told, the length of a football field. I ran after him, Missy, I was screaming his name over and over again, almost as if I expected he would still be alive, me, a doctor. I ran ten yards and there was his baseball cap and I ran twenty yards and there was one of his Star Wars sneakers, I ran forty yards and by then the truck had run off the road and the box had jackknifed in that field beyond the Ringers barn. People were coming out of their houses and I went on screaming his name, Missy, and at the fiftyyard line there was his jumper, it was turned insideout, and on the seventyyard line there was the other sneaker, and then there was Gage. Abruptly the world went dove gray. Everything passed out of his view. Dimly he could feel the corner of the stand which held the book digging into his palm, but that was all. Louis? Missys voice. Distant. The mystery sound of pigeons in his ears. Louis? Closer now. Alarmed. The world swam back into focus. You all right? He smiled. Fine, he said. Im okay, Missy. She signed for herself and her husbandMr. and Mrs. David Dandridgein round Palmermethod script; to this she added their addressRural Box 67, Old Bucksport Roadand then raised her eyes to Louiss and quickly dropped them, as if her very address on the road where Gage had died constituted a crime. Be well, Louis, she whispered. David Dandridge shook his hand and muttered something inarticulate, his prominent, arrowheadshaped adams apple bobbing up and down. Then he followed his wife hurriedly down the aisle for the ritual examination of a coffin which had been made in Storyville, Ohio, a place where Gage had never been and where he was not known. Following the Dandridges they all came, moving in a shuffling line, and Louis received them, their handshakes, their hugs, their tears. His collar and the upper sleeve of his dark gray suit coat soon became quite damp. The smell of the flowers began to reach even the back of the room and to permeate the place with the smell of funeral. It was a smell he remembered from his childhoodthat sweet, thick, mortuary smell of flowers. Louis was told how merciful it was that Gage hadnt suffered thirtytwo times by his own inner count. He was told that God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform twentyfive times. Bringing up the rear was hes with the angels now, a total of twelve times. It began to get to him. Instead of losing what marginal sense these little aphorisms had (the way your own name will lose its sense and identity if you repeat it over and over again), they seemed to punch deeper each time, angling in toward the vitals. By the time his motherinlaw and fatherinlaw put in their inevitable appearance, he had begun to feel like a hardtagged fighter. His first thought was that Rachel had been rightand how. Irwin Goldman had indeed aged. He waswhat? Fiftyeight, fiftynine? Today he looked a graven and composed seventy. He looked almost absurdly like Israels Prime Minister Menachem Begin with his bald head and Cokebottle glasses. Rachel had told Louis Goldman had aged when she came back from her Thanksgiving trip, but Louis had not expected this. Of course, he thought, maybe it hadnt been this bad at Thanksgiving. The old man hadnt lost one of his two grandchildren at Thanksgiving. Dory walked beside him, her face all but invisible under two possibly threelayers of heavy black netting. Her hair was fashionably blue, the color favored by elderly ladies of an upperclass American persuasion. She held her husbands ann. All Louis could really see behind the veil was the glitter of her tears. Suddenly he decided it was time to let bygones be bygones. He could not hold the old grudge any longer. Suddenly it was too heavy. Perhaps it was the cumulative weight of all those platitudes. Irwin. Dory, he murmured. Thank you for coming. He made a gesture with his arms, as if to shake hands with Rachels father and hug her mother simultaneously, or perhaps even to hug them both. Either way he felt his own tears start for the first time, and for an instant he had the crazy idea that they could mend all their fences, that Gage would do that much for them in his dying, as if this were some romantic ladies novel he had stepped into where the wages of death were reconciliation, where it could cause something more constructive than this endless, stupid, grinding ache which just went on and on and on. Dory started toward him, making a gesture, beginning, perhaps, to hold out her own arms. She said somethingOh, Louis . . . and something else that was garbledand then Goldman pulled his wife back. For a moment the three of them stood in a tableau that no one noticed except themselves (unless perhaps the funeral director, standing unobtrusively in the far corner of the East Room, sawLouis supposed that Uncle Carl would have seen), Louis with his arms partly outstretched, Irwin and Dory Goldman standing as stiff and straight as a couple on a wedding cake. Louis saw that there were no tears in his fatherinlaws eyes; they were bright and clear with hate (does he think I killed Gage to spite him? Louis wondered). Those eyes seemed to measure Louis, to find him the same small and pointless man who had kidnapped his daughter and brought her to this sorrow . . . and then to dismiss him. His eyes shifted to Louiss leftto Gages coffin, in factand only then did they soften. Still Louis made a final effort. Irwin, he said. Dory. Please. We have to get together on this.