Pet Sematary - Stephen King [137]
-but Louis had nevertheless taken him to George Tardiff, who was perhaps the best neurologist in the Midwest. Rachel had wanted to know what was wrong, and Louis had told her the truth: he was worried that Gage might be hydrocephalic. Rachels face had grown very white, but she had remained calm.
He seems normal to me, she said.
Louis nodded. He does to me too. But I dont want to ignore this, babe.
No, you mustnt, she said. We mustnt.
Tardiff had measured Gages skull and frowned. Tardiff poked two fingers at Gages face, Three Stooges style. Gage flinched. Tardiff smiled. Louiss heart thawed out a little. Tardiff gave Gage a ball to hold. Gage held it for a while and then dropped it.
Tardiff retrieved the ball and bounced it, watching Cages eyes. Gages eyes tracked the ball.
Id say theres a fifty-fifty chance hes hydrocephalic, Tardiff said to Louis in his office later. No-the odds may actually be a bit higher than that. If so, its mild. He seems very alert. The new shunt operation should take care of the problem easily if there is a problem.
A shunt means brain surgery, Louis said.
Minor brain surgery.
Louis had studied the process not long after he began to worry about the size of Gages head, and the shunt operation, designed to drain excess fluid, had not looked very minor to him. But he kept his mouth shut, telling himself just to be grateful the operation existed at all.
Of course, Tardiff went on, theres still a large possibility that your kid just has a real big head for a nine-month-old. I think a CAT-scan is the best place to start. Do you agree?
Louis had agreed.
Gage spent a night in Our Sisters of Charity Hospital and underwent general anesthesia. His sleeping head was stuck into a gadget that looked like a giant clothes dryer. Rachel and Louis waited downstairs while Ellie spent the day at Grandma and Granddas, watching Sesame Street nonstop on Granddas new video recorder. For Louis, those had been long, gray hours in which he found himself totting up sums of varying ugliness and comparing results. Death under general anesthesia, death during a shunt operation, mild retardation as a result of hydrocephalus, cataclysmic retardation as a result of same, epilepsy, blindness oh, there were all sorts of possibilities. For really complete disaster maps, Louis remembered thinking, see your local doctor.
Tardiff had come into the waiting room around five oclock. He had three cigars. He plugged one into Louiss mouth, one into Rachels (she was too flabbergasted to protest), and one into his own.
The kid is fine. No hydrocephalus.
Light this thing, Rachel had said, weeping and laughing at the same time. Im going to smoke it till I puke.
Grinning, Tardiff lit their cigars.
God was saving him for Route 15, Dr. Tardiff, Louis thought now.
Rachel, if he had been hydrocephalic, and if the shunt hadnt worked could you have still loved him?
What a weird question, Louis!
Could you?
Yes, of course. I would have loved Gage no matter what.
Even if he was retarded?
Yes.
Would you have wanted him institutionalized?
No, I dont think so, she said slowly. I suppose, with the money youre making now, we could afford that a really good place, I mean but I think Id want him with us if we could Louis, why do you ask?
Why, I suppose I was still thinking of your sister Zelda, he said. He was still astonished at this eerie glibness. Wondering if you could have gone through that again.
It wouldnt have been the same, she said, sounding almost amused. Gage was well, Gage was Gage. He was our son. That would have made all the difference. It would have been hard, I guess, but would you have wanted him in an institution?