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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmNo such thing, as Jud might have said. The landing was empty silent. There was no sound but the wind.Louis went backto bed and slept.The next day Louis called the intensive care unit at the EMMC. Norma’s condition was still listed ascritical; that was standard operating procedure for the first twenty-four hours following a heart attack.Louis got a cheerier assessment from Weybridge, her doctor, however. “I wouldn’t even call it a minormyocardial infarction,” he said. “No scarring. She owes you a hell of a lot, Dr. Creed.”On impulse, Louis stopped by the hospital later that week with a bouquet of flowers, and found thatNorma had been moved to a semiprivate room downstairs—a very good sign. Jud was with her.Norma exclaimed over the flowers and buzzed a nurse for a vase. Then she directed Jud until they werein water, arranged to her specifications, and placed on the dresser in the corner.Mother s feeling ever s much better, Jud said dryly after he had fiddled with the flowers for the thirdtime.“Don’t be smart, Judson,” Norma said.“No, ma’am.”21At last Norma looked at Louis. “I want to thank you for what you did,” she said with a shyness that wasutterly unaffected and thus doubly touching. “Jud says I owe you my life.”Embarrassed, Louis said, “Jud exaggerates.”“Not very damn much, he don’t,” Jud said. He squinted at Louis, almost smiling but not quite. “Didn’tyour mother tell you never to slip a thank-you, Louis?”She hadn’t said anything about that, at least not that Louis could remember, but he believed she had saidsomething once about false modesty being half the sin of pride.“Norma,” he said, “anything I could do, I was pleased to do.”“You’re a dear man,” Norma said. “You take this man of mine out somewhere and let him buy you aglass of beer. I’m feeling sleepy again, and I can’t seem to get rid of him.”file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste...%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (86 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM