Chapter 32 Thirty-two

Norma died not of a heart attack but of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, probably painlessly.Louis called Steve that afternoon to tell what had happened, and Steve said he didn't take the sudden death very seriously, saying, "Sometimes God makes people die slowly, and sometimes God just points at you and tells you Stop and die immediately." Rachel didn't want to talk about it, or let Louis tell her about it. Allie was surprised, amused, and a little sad.Louis thought it was a perfectly normal reaction for a 6-year-old.Allie wondered if Norma's eyes were open or closed when she died.Louis said he didn't know either.

Chad held himself back as much as he had expected.Thinking of the nearly 60 years they had lived together, Louis noticed that on this day, Chad looked a lot older, really like an 83-year-old man, sitting alone at the kitchen table, smoking and drinking. Drinking wine, staring blankly at the living room. When Louis came in, Chad looked up and said, "Oh, she's gone, Louis." His tone was so clear and calm, Louis thought he was still recovering from the blow, and then Chad's lips twitched and he used a Arms block eyes.Louis came over and put an arm on the old man's shoulder, and Chad began to cry.Well, he recovered, and it was clear to Chad that his wife was dead.

Louis said, "Okay, cry, cry, Chad, I think Norma wants you to cry for a while. Maybe she'll be mad if you don't." Louis said, crying himself.Chad gave Louis a hug, and Louis gave the old man a hug. Chad cried for another 10 minutes or so, then calmed down.Louis listened carefully to Chad's account of what had happened—both as a doctor and as a friend.He listened to see if Chad mentioned the circulatory problem, to see if Chad knew exactly when Norma's illness had struck, and he listened to the old man's references to Norma in the present tense all of them.He saw no sign that the old man was out of control.Louis knows this is not uncommon for an elderly couple who are almost inseparable.Perhaps the shock, he thought, was some deep emotion that had gone with the dead piece.Lewis concluded that Chad was deeply distressed but sane.He didn't see any of the weakness in Chad that he'd seen in Norma on New Year's Eve.

Chad fetched a beer from the fridge for Louis, still red and tear-stained from crying.Chad said, "It was a little too early, the sun was just hitting the yard, and in that case..." "Stop it," Louis said, opening a beer and looking at Chad, "shall we toast her off?" Chad said: "I think we should. Louise, you don't know what she looks like when she's 16, she walks out of church after service with her coat blowing in the wind... just looking at her. Her charm Makes the devil swear off drinking too. Thank God she never asked me to quit." Louis nodded, raised his glass slightly and said, "Cheers to Norma."

Jud clinked his glass and wept again, but also smiled.He nodded and said, "Rest in peace. Wherever she is, may she never suffer from that damn arthritis again." "Amen," Louis said, and they both drank. That was the only time Louis saw Chad slightly drunk, but even when drunk he was able to recall.He told a series of warm memories of the past, vividly, clearly and touchingly.What Louis admired most was that when Chad talked about the past, he used the present tense in full, as if it was happening at this moment.Louis wondered if he could be like Jud if Rachel died suddenly after breakfast, maybe not even half as good as him.

Chad called Smith's Funeral Home in Bangor and made arrangements.To-morrow the undertaker is ordered, and then some others; yes, he'll embalm her, and dress her in the dress he chooses; yes, he'll choose the underclothes; no, He doesn't want the special strapped shoes that the funeral home provides.He asked, would someone in the funeral home wash and wash her hair?Norma washed her hair for the last time on a Monday night, so she died dirty.Louis' uncle was in the business, and he knew the undertaker must be telling Chad that final grooming was included in their services.Chad nodded, thanked his speaker, and continued listening.Yes, said Chad, who gave Norma permission to make up, but only lightly. "She's dead, and people know," said Chad, lighting a cigarette. "There's no need to put a lot of make-up on her." In a coffin, she will be buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, where they bought the tomb in 1951.With the notebook in his hand, he told the undertaker the number of the cemetery, which was H-101.Chad later told Louis that his plot number was H-102.

Finally, Chad hung up the phone, looked at Louis and said, "This is going to be the most beautiful funeral in the world as far as I know. If you want a beer, Louis, open another beer. Arranging a funeral will cost money." For a while." Louis was about to say no—he felt a little humbled—and a strange sight appeared before his eyes: Chad was dragging Norma's body through the woods, past the pet cemetery, and on his way to the Meek Mike cemetery. go. This scene seemed to give him a slap in the face, he stood up without saying a word, walked to the refrigerator, and took another can of beer.Chad nodded to him and rang the phone again.By 3 o'clock that afternoon, Louis had come home for some sandwiches and a bowl of soup, and Chad had already made arrangements for his wife's funeral, one thing at a time, as if it were an important dinner party. .He called the North Lutheran Floor Methodist Church, where the actual funeral was to be held.He also called the cemetery office at Mount Hope Cemetery, which Smith Funeral Home would have called, but Chad had called them all in advance.These are things that few people who have recently lost loved ones think about...or if they do, they can't bring themselves to do them.Louis admires what Chad has done all the more.Chad later called Norma and several of his relatives.The phone number was looked up in an old, crooked phone book, and between calls he drank some beer and reminisced.

Louis is full of admiration for Chad...and love? Yes, Louis knew that in his heart, and there was love. When Allie came downstairs in her pajamas that night to kiss Mom and Dad goodnight, she asked Louis Norma if she was going to heaven.She asked Louis almost in a whisper, as if she knew it wasn't a good question to hear.Rachel was in the kitchen making chicken pot pie, which she was going to bring to Chad the next day. Across the street, all the lights were on in Chad's house, and cars were parked in his driveway and sidewalks on either side of the road.The set time for condolences is tomorrow, at the funeral home, but tonight many people have come to comfort Chad, to jog his memory, to mourn Norma's death.Chad said at one point that afternoon it was "going first".Between Chad's house and Louis' house, the cold February wind howled, the road was covered with ice, and it was the coldest part of the Maine winter.

After hearing her daughter's question, Louis hugged her into his lap and said, "Oh, baby, I really don't know." On the TV, a shootout was playing.A man spun and fell to the ground. Louis and Allie said nothing.Louis realized with some discomfiture that his daughter probably knew a lot about McDonald's, Spider-Man, and King Bogo, but not so much about Moses, Jesus, and St. Paul.Since neither Louis nor Rachel is very interested in religious services, Louis suspects that Ellie may not know anything about spiritual beliefs.It's not a myth, it's not a dream, but something hazy, Louis thought blankly, it's too late, even though she's only 5 years old, it's too late to tell her about heaven.God, how did it get dark so quickly.

But Ellie was still looking at him, and he should say something.So Lewis said, "People believe that when we die, all sorts of things happen. Some people think we're going to heaven or hell, some people think we're going to be reborn like kids—" "Of course, carnations, like Rose in the movie Audrey Rose on TV." "You haven't seen that movie, have you?" Louis said, thinking that if his wife heard that Allie had seen the horror movie "Audrey Ross," she would have a cerebral hemorrhage. "It was told to me at school by Mary," Allie said. Mary, Allie's self-proclaimed best friend, was malnourished, short, dirty, and looked like she had impetigo or ringworm Or maybe even scurvy.Both Louis and Rachel try to encourage Ellie to make friends as much as possible, but once after Mary left Rachel told Louis that she always had the urge to check Ellie's head for gnats and lice.Louis laughed and nodded after listening.

Allie continued, "Mary's mom made her watch all the TV shows." There was an underlying criticism in the tone that Louis wished he hadn't heard. "Oh, it's not carnations, it's rebirth. But I think you already know that. Catholics believe in heaven and hell, but they also believe in a place called Hell's Edge, and a place called Purgatory. And Hindus and Buddhists Faith in Nirvana—" Louis saw a figure on the wall of the dining room, and Rachel was listening. Louis spoke more slowly: "There may be more. But the truth, Ellie, is that no one knows what happens after death. People say they know, and they say it because they believe in what they believe in. Saying. Do you know what faith is?" "Oh" Louis said, "Well, we're sitting on chairs now, do you think my chair will be here tomorrow?" "It will, of course." "Then you have a belief that you believe it's still here. I believe that too. Faith is belief in what a thing is or what it is, see?" "Understood." Ellie nodded affirmatively. "But we don't know if it's still here, maybe a chair thief might break in and steal it, right?" Ellie giggled, and Louis laughed too. "We just believe it's not going to happen. Faith is a wonderful thing and people who are really religious want us to believe that belief and knowing are the same thing, but I don't believe that myself. Because there's so much out there on the subject Opinions vary. What we do know is that when we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and minds survive death, or they don't. If they survive, they do. Opening up people's minds to possibilities. If we're not dead, we're just getting drunk. Death is death." "Like falling asleep?" Louis thought for a moment and said, "I think it's more like being anesthetized." "Dad, which one do you believe in?" The shadow on the wall moved and then stopped. All his adult life, Louis believed that death was the end of life, and that death meant the end of everything.He had never believed in resurrection from the dead, but now, he believed it a little bit, at least because of the kitten Church. He slowly said to his daughter: "I believe that our thoughts and souls can still be preserved after death. As for what it looks like, I don't know. Maybe different people have different ways. Maybe what you believe in your life, death But I'm sure we'll go on somehow after we're dead, and I'm sure Mrs. Crandall is probably out there somewhere. She's happy there." Ellie said, "You believe in this idea." Ellie's tone sounded not of questioning, but of awe. Luis smiled a little awkwardly, half happily, "I think so, and I believe it's time for you to go to bed, too. You should have gone to bed 10 minutes ago." He kissed his daughter's mouth and nose twice. "Do you think animals live on after death?" "Yes." Louis said without hesitation.For a moment he even wanted to say, "Especially cats." The words were on his lips for a moment, but he didn't say them.His skin felt tight and cold. "Okay," Allie said, climbing down from Louis' lap, "I'm going to kiss Mommy goodnight." "Go." Louis watched her daughter walk towards the kitchen. At the door of the restaurant, Ellie turned around and said, "I was so stupid that day, I thought Church died and cried like that, didn't I?" Louis said, "No baby, I don't think you're stupid at all." "I can take it if the kitten dies," Allie said, and then seemed a little taken aback, wondering how she ever said what she just said.Then she seemed to agree with her own thoughts and said: "Of course, I can definitely accept this fact." After finishing speaking, she went to find her mother. Later in bed, Rachel said, "I heard what you just said to your daughter." "You don't agree with those statements?" Louis asked. Louis thought that if his wife wanted to speak her mind, it might be best to let her do so. Rachel said slowly, with some hesitation that didn't seem to be her own, "Yes, Louis, yes. I think it's horrible, you know, when I'm scared, I always try to guard against the idea." Louis could not remember a time when Rachel had been so thoughtful about speaking, and suddenly he felt that he should be more careful about talking to his wife than he was with his daughter.He felt like a prospector. "Uncle, what? Are you afraid you will die?" "It's not that I'm going to die myself, I almost never think about it, never think about it again; but when I was a child, I often thought about death, and I couldn't sleep, and I always dreamed that there were many monsters to eat in bed Me, all the monsters look like my sister Zelda." Louis thought, Oh, this is the problem.After all these years of our marriage, she was finally about to tell the truth, about the crux of her fear of death.So Louis said, "You don't talk about her very much." Rachel smiled, stroked her husband's face, and said, "Louis, you're so cute. I never mention her, and I try never to think of her." "I've always thought you must have your reasons." "Indeed, I have my reasons." She paused, thinking. Louise said: "I know she died... of spinal meningitis..." "It's spinal meningitis," Rachel repeated. "We don't have any more pictures of her in the house." "There's a picture of a little girl in your father's..." "In his study. Yes, I forgot that one. I think, I have another one in my mother's purse. My sister is two years older than me. She's sick... has been lying in the back bedroom... Like a dirty secret that no one knows.Louis, she always lies there and dies there, that's my sister, a dirty secret...she's always been a dirty secret secret!" Rachel suddenly burst into tears, and Louis sensed his wife was going hysterical. He became alert and put his arms around her shoulders, but she pulled back as soon as he touched her shoulders.Louis heard his fingers scraping against his wife's pajamas. "Rachel... baby... don't..." "Don't tell me no, Luis, don't stop me, I only have the courage to say it once. About my sister, I don't want to talk about her again. Maybe I won't sleep well today." "Is it that scary?" Although Louis had guessed the answer, he still asked.The wife's story explained everything that had happened in the past.It occurred to Louis that Rachel had never been to a funeral with him, not even that of their good friend Al.She was sick that day, like she had the flu or something, looked like it was bad, but the next day she was fine again.She was fine again after the funeral, Louis thought self-correctingly.At that time, he thought that his wife's illness might be caused by psychological pressure. "Yes, it was terrible. Much more terrible than you can imagine. Louis, we watched her get worse every day, and there was nothing anyone could do. She kept crying and her body seemed to be withering... a Bit by bit shrinking... Her shoulders are getting closer, her face is getting longer and longer like a mask. Her hands are like bird claws, and sometimes I have to feed her. I hate it the most, but I still Feed her, and never said anything that frightened her. Later, the pain worsened, and the doctor started to give her anesthesia. She's alive, she's going to be addicted, but everyone knows she won't. I guess that's why she's a... secret from all of us. Because we want her dead, Louis, we want her dead. She's dead Not only does she no longer feel pain herself, nor do we. But because she's looking more and more like a monster, and she's starting to look like a monster... oh god, I know how much that sounds horrible……" Rachel covered her face with her hands. Louis stroked his wife tenderly and said, "Rachel, that doesn't sound scary at all." "Terrible!" Rachel yelled. "Terrible!" "Just as true as it sounds," Lewis said, "people who are chronically ill often turn out to be difficult and unpleasant people, like monsters. The idea that chronically ill people are like saints is too much." Romantic. By the time the pain eats away at the bed-ridden patient, he becomes vitriolic and inflicts pain. They can't resist it, but it doesn't make them less miserable." Rachel looked at him in shock...almost hopefully at Louis.But then a look of disbelief appeared on her face: "You are making up a lie." Louis said with a serious smile, "Would you like me to show you the textbook? Statistics on suicide rates, would you like to see them? After a patient dies, the rate of suicide among the rest of the family is extremely high." "suicide?" "They'll take pills, or gas poisoning, or guns. Their hate... fatigue... boredom... and pain..." Louis said, shrugging his shoulders, clasping his hands gently together, " The living feel as if they murdered the sick, so they kill themselves to get rid of it." With a hurt-relieved look on her face, Rachel said, "My sister just got mean and hateful. Sometimes she peed on the bed on purpose. My mom would have to keep asking her if she wanted to help her." to take her to the bathroom...and then after she couldn't get up she had to ask her if she wanted a potty...and Zelda kept saying no...then wet the bed and my mom or me and mom had to give her Changing the sheets...and she'd say she didn't mean to. But Luis, we could see that nasty smile in her eyes, we could. The room smelled of urine and medicine...that smelled like Smells like cough syrup... and now I wake up and I can still smell it... so I think Zelda isn't dead, is she? I think..." Rachel held her breath.Louis took his wife's hand, and she squeezed his fingers tightly. "When we changed her sheets, we could see her crooked back, down, Louis, down, like her... like her butt had shrunk into the middle of her back," he said. Rachel looked terrified with teary eyes, like a child waking up from a nightmare. "Sometimes she would touch me with her... her hands... her bird-claw hands... I almost screamed sometimes and begged her not to do that. Once, when I was feeding her soup, She touched my face with her hands, and I was so frightened that I poured soup on my arm and burned it. I really cried out at that time... I cried loudly, but at that time I also saw her eyes Laughing smugly. Eventually, the medicine didn't work, and by then she was screaming, and none of us could remember what she was like before, even my mom. My sister turned into a hated, nasty The screaming monster, lying in the back bedroom...became a dirty little secret in our family." Rachel swallowed heavily, her throat rattling. "My parents were away, and my sister ended up...she last...you know, when she finally..." Rachel struggled, "my parents weren't home when she died, and it was just me with her. Then It's Passover and my parents are visiting friends. Just for a little while, just a few minutes. I'm in the kitchen reading a magazine. Oh, actually reading a magazine. I'll wait until then to feed her some meds because she kept screaming, almost as soon as my parents left she screamed and screamed. I couldn't read when she made me so... ah, what happened... oh... Zelda stopped screaming .Louis, I was 8 years old..was having nightmares every night..I started thinking my sister must hate me for having a straight back.Because I didn't have that constant pain because I could walk , because I'm going to live on... I'm starting to picture her killing me. Louis, even now, until tonight, I really don't think it's all my imagination, I do think she hates me, I don't really think She would kill me, but if she somehow got attached to me...like in the fairy tales and kicked me out of my body...I think she would do that, but, she doesn't scream When it was over, I went in to see if she was ok...to see if she had fallen out of bed, or was missing a pillow. I went in and looked at her and thought she must have swallowed her own tongue and choked Dead. Louis--" Rachel's voice rose again, like a frightened tearful child, as if she had gone back in time and experienced everything she had been through, and she went on, "Louis, I didn't know what to do! I was 8 years old!" "Yeah, of course you don't know what to do," Louis said.He turned to his wife and hugged her, and Rachel clutched him in panic, like a poor overboard when a boat goes overboard in the middle of a lake.Louis asked, "Honey, did someone blame you?" "No, no one blamed me. But no one made it any better. No one could change it. No one could stop it, Louis. She didn't swallow her tongue. She started making a sound, One, I don't know, like a - qua - qua - sound." Rachel imitated the sound of Zelda's death with a dejected expression, while Louis flashed Pascoe's death and grabbed his wife tightly. "...and saliva, which flowed from her mouth and flowed down to her chin..." "Stop it, Rachel," Louis said in a trembling voice, "I know the symptoms." Rachel said stubbornly, "I'm explaining, I'm explaining why I couldn't go to Norma's funeral, and why we had that stupid fight that day—" "Hush—that quarrel has been forgotten." "I haven't. I remember it very well, Louis. I remember it as clearly as I remember my sister Zelda choking to death in bed on April 14th, 1965." For a long time there was silence in the house. Rachel continued: "I turned her over on her stomach and hit her on the back so hard I knew how to do it. Louise, her feet were bouncing up and down... her bent legs... I remember one Kind of like a fart sound... I think it's not her fart, it's me, but instead of fart, it's the sound of the seams under my shirt sleeves ripping open when I flip her over. She starts...begins to spasm... …I saw her face turned to the side, buried in the pillow, and I thought, oh, she's choked, Zelda is choked, my parents are going to come home and say I choked her, I killed her, they'd say, you hate her, Rachel. It's true, and the first thought that went through my head, I remember, was, oh well, finally , Zelda started choking, it's gonna be over soon. So I turned her over again, Lois, her face was purple and her eyes were bulging and her neck was getting thicker , and then she died. I backed up to the door, out of her room, but I hit the wall, and a painting fell off the wall - it was Zelda's favorite before she got sick A picture from Woz's picture book. It's a picture of Woz the Great. Zelda can't pronounce that sound. My mom had that picture framed because... because Zelda loves it the most..Woods the Great Horror painting fell from the wall to the floor and the glass in the frame shattered and I started screaming so loud because I knew she was dead and I thought...I guess I thought that painting was her ghost, coming back to get me, I knew her ghost would hate me as much as she did, but her ghost wouldn't be pinned to the bed, so I screamed. I screamed Running out of the house screaming, 'Zelda is dead! Zelda is dead! Zelda is dead!' Neighbors...they came to see what happened...they saw me I was running down the street with both sleeves of my shirt torn, yelling, 'Zelda's dead!' I guess they thought I was crying, but I thought... I thought, maybe I was laughing. I thought I might be laughing." Lewis said: "If you laugh, then I have to pay tribute to you." Rachel said confidently, "That's not what you meant, though." Louis ignored it, thinking that his wife might finally lose the horrible memory that had lingered in her mind for so long.She would forget most of it anyway, but not this one, not all of it.Lewis is no psychiatrist, but he knows that there are always some nasty things that happen in the life of any creature, and that humans always seem to be compelled to recall them, even if it hurts themselves.Tonight Rachel told all the scariest things she could remember, it was like pulling a rotten tooth.Let this dreadful thing go, God bless, let this be forgotten, the wife can talk, forgetting will be incredible - it takes courage to remember.Louis really admired his wife, and he felt lighter. He sat up, turned on the light and said, "Yes, I salute you, and if I ever needed another reason why I didn't like your parents, I have it now. Rachel, they shouldn't have You shouldn't be alone with your sister." Rachel berated Louis like an 8-year-old, saying, "Louis, that was during Passover—" "I don't care what big holiday it is," Louis said in a low, rough voice, which startled Rachel.Louis thought of the two volunteer nurses who had been there the morning Pascoe died, one who returned to work the next day and the other who never came.Louis didn't find it strange, and didn't blame her. Where was the orderly, Louis thought angrily?Rachel's parents were out, they should have hired a caregiver, but instead they left an 8 year old at home with her dying sister who was probably mentally disturbed by a long illness .Why do you do this?Just because it's Passover time?Just because the respectable and refined Mrs. Goldman couldn't bear the stench on that particular morning and had to go out for a little while?The responsibility then fell on Rachel.Yes, go see friends, neighbors?Rachel, 8, with pigtails and a little shirt, was left to babysit her sister.Could Rachel have stayed at home and put up with that rancid smell?If she can't stand it, she will die.Deranged sister, then what are they doing sending her to Vermont Girl Scout camp for six weeks every year?Does buying Gage and Allie some new clothes make up for it all? "If you stop messing with my daughter, I will pay for your medical school..." But when your daughter was dying of spinal meningitis, it was another daughter who was with her. Why didn't you wave your hand? What about the checkbook?You old bastard, why didn't you hire a caretaker to look after Zelda instead of 8-year-old Rachel? Louis thought, stood up, and got out of bed. Rachel asked in panic, "Where are you going?" "Get you a sedative." "You know I don't—" "You need it tonight." Rachel took the pills and told him what happened next, her voice remaining calm and the sedative taking effect. The neighbor next door found 8-year-old Rachel curled up under a big tree screaming "Zelda is dead" over and over again.Her nose was bleeding, she was covered in blood and the neighbor called an ambulance and notified her parents.The neighbor had stopped Rachel's nosebleed, made her drink a cup of hot tea and two aspirins, and then learned from Rachel that her parents had gone to the Cabron couple's house on the other side of the city. Mr. Bronn was an accountant in Rachel's father's company. By evening, the Goldmans' house had changed dramatically.Zelda died, her room was thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, all the furniture was moved out, the house became a big empty box, and later - until a long time later, the room became Goldman's Mrs.'s sewing room. Rachel had a nightmare that night, waking up at two o'clock in the morning screaming "Mommy" and finding herself so frightened that she could barely move and get out of bed.Her back hurts badly from concentrating on flipping Zelda during the day.Her flipping Zelda would be seen by anyone as a basic, obvious act of Zelda to keep her from choking to death, but Rachel didn't see it that way, she strained her back, and Rachel Kiel thought it was Zelda taking revenge on her through the grave.Zelda knew she was dead and Rachel would be happy; Zelda knew Rachel was laughing when she ran out of the house screaming "Zelda's dead, Zelda's dead," Not crying; Zelda knew she was murdered, so she was going to give Rachel a spinal meningitis, and soon Rachel's back would be twisted and she'd have to stay in the The bed, slowly but surely, would become a monster, and her hands would warp and deform like bird claws.After a while she'll scream in pain, like Zelda, and then she'll start peeing on the bed too, and she'll choke to death, and it's Zelda's revenge. No one could dissuade Rachel from believing this—not even her mother, or her father, or Dr. Murray.Dr. Murray diagnosed her, thought it was just a slight back strain, and then rudely told Rachel not to mess around.The doctor said she should remember that her sister had just died, her parents were sad enough, this was not the time for her to be there crying like a child to get their attention. Only the slowly relieving back pain convinced Rachel that this was neither Zelda's supernatural vengeance nor God's punishment for wicked people.Months (years later, actually) she would have this nightmare of her sister dying over and over again, waking up and reaching for her back to make sure she was okay.After a nightmare, she always imagined that the closet door would suddenly open, and Zelda would sneak out, blue-faced, twisted, eyes rolled, tongue dragging, hands reaching out like claws to kill Rachel. murderer.And Rachel was lying on the bed, stroking her back... Rachel didn't go to Zelda's funeral, and she hasn't been to anyone's funeral since. Louis said, "If you'd have told me these things before, I would have understood a lot of things." "Louis, I can't," Rachel said simply, her voice tinged with sleep, "ever since then I've been... a little scared to talk about it, I guess." Louis thought, Ah yes, just a little scared. "I can't seem to stop myself, and in my head I know you're right, that death is a natural - even a good - thing to do - but, what I know in my mind and what happens in my heart..." "Yes." Louis said. “那天我向你大发雷霆，我知道艾丽不过是对死亡的想法感到悲哀，因此在那儿大哭……其实是一种适应了解死亡的方式……但我没法控制自己，对不起，路易斯。” 路易斯抚摩着妻子的头发说：“不必道歉，不过只要你能感觉好些，我什么都不在意。” 瑞琪儿笑着说：“确实，你知道，我觉得好多了，我觉得好像自己除掉了某种毒害了我许多年的东西。” "Maybe." 瑞琪儿的眼睛合上了，然后又慢慢地睁开了说：“路易斯，请别埋怨我父亲，那时对他们来说也很难。赛尔达治病的费用非常大，因此我爸爸失去了向郊区扩大业务的机会，而且市中心商店里的销售额也直线下降，更重要的，我妈妈她自己那时候也快疯了。啊，后来终于全摆脱了，好像赛尔达的死给我们带来了转机和以后的好时光似的。是有过萧条的时期，但后来钱松了些，爸爸得到了贷款，从那儿以后他再没回忆过去。但我想，那也正是他们总是全力关注我的原因，不仅是因为我是惟一活着的……” 路易斯说：“还有内疚。” “我想是的，等他们下葬诺尔玛时，我要是借口生病不去，你不会生气吧？” “我不会的，亲爱的。”路易斯停顿了一下，接着握着妻子的一只手说：“我能带艾丽去吗？” 瑞琪儿的手紧握了一下，说：“噢，我不知道，路易斯，她还太小……” 路易斯提醒妻子说：“她一年前就已经知道了婴儿是打哪儿来的了。” 瑞琪儿咬着嘴唇看着天花板沉寂了好一会，终于说：“要是你认为那样好的话，要是你认为那不会……那不会伤害她的话……” “瑞琪儿，到这边来。”路易斯说。那天晚上两个人紧拥着睡在路易斯的床上，半夜里瑞琪儿颤抖着醒来，镇静药的效力已经过去了。路易斯用手抚摩着妻子，小声地在她耳边说着：“没事，没事。”使她镇静了下来，后来她又睡着了。