Pet Sematary(15)

For a moment Louis had the crazy impression that he was still talking to Ellie; she had simply donned stilts, one of her mother's dresses, and a very clever, very realistic Rachel mask. Even the expression was the same-set and a bit sullen on top, but wounded beneath.

He groped, because suddenly the issue seemed large to him, not a thing to be simply passed over in deference to that mystery... or that aloneness. He groped because it seemed to him that she was missing something so large it nearly filled the landscape, and you couldn't do that unless you were deliberately closing your eyes to it.

"Rachel," he said, "Church is going to die."

She stared at him angrily. "That is hardly the point," she said, enunciating each word carefully, speaking as one might speak to a backward child. "Church is not going to die today, or tomorrow-"

"I tried to tell her that-"

"Or the day after that, or probably for years-"

"Honey, we can't be sure of th-"

"Of course we can!" she shouted. "We take good care. of him, he's not going to die, no one is going to die around here, and so why do you want to go and get a little girl all upset about something she can't understand until she's much older?"

"Rachel, listen."

But Rachel had no intention of listening. She was blazing. "It's bad enough to try and cope with a death-a pet or a friend or a relative-when it happens, without turning it into a... a goddam tourist attraction... a F-F-Forest Lawn for a-animals... " Tears were running down her cheeks.

"Rachel," he said and tried to put his hands on her shoulders. She shrugged them off in a quick, hard gesture.

"Never mind," she said. "You don't have the slightest idea what I'm talking about."

He sighed. "I feel like I fell through a hidden trapdoor and into a giant Mixmaster," he said, hoping for a smile. He got none; only her eyes, locked on his, black and blazing. She was furious, he realized; not just angry, but absolutely furious. "Rachel," he said suddenly, not fully sure what he was going to say until it was out, "how did you sleep last night?"

"Oh boy," she said scornfully, turning away-but not before he had seen a wounded flicker in her eyes. "That's really intelligent. Really intelligent. You never change, Louis. When something isn't going right, blame Rachel, right? Rachel's just having one of her weird emotional reactions."

"That's not fair."

"No?" She took the bowl of cake batter over to the far counter by the stove and set it down with another bang. She began to grease a cake tin, her lips pressed tightly together.

He said patiently, "There's nothing wrong with a child finding out something about death, Rachel. In fact, I'd call it a necessary thing. Ellie's reaction-her crying-that seemed perfectly natural to me. It-"

"Oh, it sounded natural," Rachel said, whirling on him again. "It sounded very natural to hear her weeping her heart out over her cat which is perfectly fine-"

"Stop it," he said. "You're not making any sense."
Chapter 4

"I don't want to discuss it anymore."

"Yes, but we're going to," he said, angry himself now. "You had your at-bats-how about giving me mine?"

"She's not going up there anymore. And as far as I'm concerned, the subject is closed."

"Ellie has known where babies come from since last year," Louis said deliberately. "We got her the Myers book and talked to her about it, do you remember that? We both agreed that children ought to know where they come from."

"That has nothing to do with-"

"It does, though!" he said roughly. "When I was talking to her in my office, about Church, I got thinking about my mother and how she spun me that old cabbage-leaf story when I asked her where women got babies. I've never forgotten that lie. I don't think children ever forget the lies their parents tell them."

"Where babies come from has nothing to do with a goddam pet cemetery!" Rachel cried at him, and what her eyes said to him was Talk about the parallels all night and all day, if you want to, Louis; talk until you turn blue, but I won't accept it.

Still, he tried.

"She knows about babies; that place up in the woods just made her want to know something about the other end of things. It's perfectly natural. In fact, I think it's the most natural thing in the w-"

"Will you stop saying that!" she screamed suddenly-really screamed and Louis recoiled, startled. His elbow struck the.

open bag of flour on the counter. It tumbled off the edge and struck the floor, splitting open. Hour puffed up in a dry white cloud.

"Oh luck," he said dismally.

In an upstairs room, Gage began to cry.

"That's nice," she said, also crying now. "You woke the baby up too. Thanks for a nice, quiet, stressless Sunday morning."

She started by him and Louis put a hand on her arm. "Let me ask you something,"

he said, '"because I know that anything-literally anything-can happen to physical beings. As a doctor I know that. Do you want to be the one to explain to her what happened if her cat gets distemper or leukemia-cats are very prone to leukemia, you know-or if he gets run over in that road? Do you want to be the one, Rachel?"