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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmthe wages of death were reconciliation, where it could cause something more constructive than thisendless, stupid, grinding ache which just went on and on and on.Dory started toward him, making a gesture, beginning, perhaps, to hold out her own arms. She saidsomething—”Oh, Louis. . .“ and something else that was garbled—and then Goldman pulled his wifeback. For a moment the three of them stood in a tableau that no one noticed except themselves (unlessperhaps the funeral director, standing unobtrusively in the far corner of the East Room, saw—Louissupposed that Uncle Carl would have seen), Louis with his arms partly outstretched, Irwin and DoryGoldman standing as stiff and straight as a couple on a wedding cake.Louis saw that there were no tears in his father-in-law’s eyes; they were bright and clear with hate (doeshe think I killed Gage to spite him? Louis wondered). Those eyes seemed to measure Louis, to find himthe same small and pointless man who had kidnapped his daughter and brought her to this sorrow. . . andthen to dismiss him. His eyes shifted to Louis’s left—to Gage’s coffin, in fact—and only then did theysoften.Still Louis made a final effort. “Irwin,” he said. “Dory. Please. We have to get together on this.”“Louis,” Dory said again—kindly, Louis thought—and then they were past him, Irwin Goldman perhapspulling his wife along, not looking to the left or the right, certainly not looking at Louis Creed. Theyapproached the coffin, and Goldman fumbled a small black skullcap out of his suit coat pocket.You didn’t sign the book, Louis thought, and then a silentbelch of such malignantly acidic content rose through his digestive works that his face clenched in pain.The morning viewing ended at last. Louis called home. Jud answered and asked him how it had gone.All right, Louis said. He asked Jud if he could talk to Steve.“If she can dress herself, I’m going to let her come this afternoon,” Steve said. “Okay by you?”“Yes,” Louis said.“How are you, Lou? No bullshit and straight on—how are you?”“All right,” Louis said briefly. “Coping.” I had all of them sign the book. All of them except Dory andIrwin, and they wouldn’t.“All right,” Steve said. “Look, shall we meet you for lunch?”Lunch. Meeting for lunch. This seemed such an alien idea that Louis thought of the science fictionfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (191 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM