Pet Sematary - Stephen King [18]
Honey, he said, it happens. Its a part of life.
Its a bad part! she cried. Its a really bad part!
There was no answer for this. She wept. Eventually her tears would stop. It was a necessary first step on the way to. making an uneasy peace with a truth that was never going to go away.
He held his daughter and listened to church bells on Sunday morning, floating across the September fields; and it was some time after her tears had stopped before he realized that, like Church, she had gone to sleep.
He put her up in her bed and then, came downstairs to the kitchen, where Rachel was beating cake batter too hard. He mentioned his surprise that Ellie should just cork off like that in the middle of the morning; it wasnt like her.
No, Rachel said, setting the bowl down on the counter with a decisive thump. It isnt, but I think she was awake most of last night. I heard her tossing around, and Church cried to go out around three. He only does that when shes restless.
Why would she ?
Oh, you know why! Rachel said, angrily. That damned pet cemetery is why! It really upset her, Lou. It was the first cemetery of any kind for her, and it just upset her. I dont think Ill write your friend Jud Crandall any thank-you notes for that little hike.
All at once hes my friend, Louis thought, bemused and distressed at the same time.
Rachel-
And I dont want her going up there again.
Rachel, what Jud said about the path is true.
Its not the path and you know it, Rachel said. She picked up the bowl again and began beating the cake batter even faster. its that damned place. Its unhealthy. Kids going up there and tending the graves, keeping the path.
fucking morbid is what it is. Whatever disease the kids in this town have got, I dont want Ellie to catch it.
Louis stared at her, nonplussed. He more than half suspected that one of the things which had kept their marriage together when it seemed as if each year brought the news that two or three of their friends marriages had collapsed was their respect of the mystery-the half-grasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you trod lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such a discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to know another.
Honey, its just a pet cemetery, he said.
The way she was crying in there just now, Rachel said, gesturing toward the door to his office with a batter-covered spoon, do you think its just a pet cemetery to her? Its going to leave a scar, Lou. No. Shes not going up there anymore. Its not the path, its the place. Here she is already thinking Church is going to die.
For a moment Louis had the crazy impression that he was still talking to Ellie; she had simply donned stilts, one of her mothers 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