Pet Sematary(47)

They chatted awhile. Rachel updated him on her family, something he could have done without, although he took a small, mean satisfaction in the news that her father's bald spot seemed to be expanding at a faster rate.

"You want to talk to Gage?" Rachel asked.

Louis grinned. "Yeah, I guess so," he said. "Don't let him hang up the phone like he did the other time."

Much rattling at the other end. Dimly he heard Rachel cajoling the kid to say hi, Daddy.

At last Gage said, "Hi, Dayee."

"Hi, Gage," Louis said cheerfully. "How you doing? How's your life? Did you pull over your grandda's pipe rack again? I certainly hope so. Maybe this time you can trash his stamp collection as well."

Gage babbled on happily for thirty seconds or so, interspersing his gobbles and grunts with a few recognizable words from his growing vocabulary-mommy, Ellie, grandda, grandma, car (pronounced in the best Yankee tradition as kaaa, Louis was amused to note), twuck, and shit.

At last Rachel pried the phone away from him to Gage's wail of indignation and Louis's measured relief-he loved his son and missed him like mad, but holding a conversation with a not-quite-two-year-old was a little bit like trying to play cribbage with a lunatic; the cards kept going everywhere and sometimes you found yourself pegging backwards.

"So how's everything there?" Rachel asked.

"Okay," Louis said, with no hesitation at all this time-but he was aware he had crossed a line, back when Rachel had asked him if he had gone over to Jud's last night and he told her he had. In his mind he suddenly heard Jud Crandall saying, The soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis... a man grows what he can and he tends ft. "Well... a little dull, if you want to know the God's honest.

Miss you."

"You actually mean to tell me you're not enjoying your vacation from this sideshow?"

"Oh, I like the quiet," he admitted, "sure. But it gets strange after the first twenty-four hours or so."

"Can I talk to Daddy?" It was Ellie in the background.

"Louis? Ellie's here."

"Okay, put her on."

He talked to Ellie for almost five minutes. She prattled on about the doll Grandma had gotten her, about the trip she and Grandda had taken to the stockyards ("Boy, do they stink, Daddy," Ellie said, and Louis thought, Your grandda's no rose, either, sweetie), about how she had helped make bread, and about how Gage had gotten away from Rachel while she was changing him. Gage had run down the hallway and pooped right in the doorway leading into Grandda's study (Atta boy, Gage! Louis thought, a big grin spreading over his face).

He actually thought he was going to get away-at least for this morning-and was getting ready to ask Ellie for her mother again so he could say goodbye to her when Ellie asked, "How's Church, Daddy? Does he miss me?"

The grin faded from Louis's mouth, but he answered readily. and with the perfect note of offhanded casualness: "He's fine, I guess. I gave him the leftover beef stew last night and then put him out. Haven't seen him this morning, but I just woke up."

Oh boy, you would have made a great murderer-cool as a cucumber. Dr. Creed, when did you last see the deceased? He came in for supper. Had a plate of beef stew, in fact. I haven't seen him since then.

"Well, give him a kiss for me."

"Yuck, kiss your own cat," Louis said, and Ellie giggled.

"You want to talk to Mommy again, Daddy?"

"Sure. Put her on."

Then it was over. He talked to Rachel for another couple of minutes; the subject of Church was not touched upon. He and his wife exchanged love-you's, and Louis hung up.

"That's that," he said to the empty, sunny room, and maybe the worst thing about it was that he didn't feel bad, didn't feel guilty at all.

24

Steve Masterton called around nine-thirty and asked if Louis would like to come up to the university and play some racket ball-the place was deserted, he said gleefully, and they could play the whole goddam day if they wanted to.

Louis could understand the glee-when the university was in session, the waiting list for a racket ball court was sometimes two days long-but he declined all the same, telling Steve he wanted to work on an article he was writing for The Magazine of College Medicine.

"You sure?" Steve asked. "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy, you know."

"Check me later," Louis said. "Maybe I'll be up for it."

Steve said he would and hung up. Louis had told only a half-lie this time; he did plan to work on his article, which concerned itself with treating contagious ailments such as chicken-pox and mononucleosis in the infirmary environment, but the main reason he had turned down Steve's offer was that he was a mass of aches and pains. He had discovered this as soon as he finished talking to Rachel and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. His back muscles creaked and groaned, his shoulders were sore from lugging the cat in that damned garbage bag, and the hamstrings in back of his knees felt like guitar strings tuned three octaves past their normal pitch. Christ, he thought, and you had the stupid idea you were in some kind of shape. He would have looked cute trying to play racket ball with Steve, lumbering around like an arthritic old man.

And speaking of old men, he hadn't made that hike into the woods the night before by himself; he had gone with a guy who was closing in on eighty-five. He wondered if Jud was hurting as badly as he was this morning.