Pet Sematary - Stephen King [95]
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 perhaps-long 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 Turtle-waxed, 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 them-they 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 soul-Gods letters to the universe-as 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 blood-his 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 spring-when 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 rn-rn-mean!
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