فصل نوزدهم

NINETEEN

Missy Dandridge kept Gage while Rachel ran Winston Churchill to the vet’s office. That night Ellie stayed awake until after eleven, complaining querulously that she couldn’t sleep without Church and calling for glass after glass of water. Finally Louis refused to let her have any more on the grounds that she would wet the bed. This caused a crying tantrum of such ferocity that Rachel and Louis stared at each other blankly, eyebrows raised.

‘She’s scared for Church,’ Rachel said. ‘Let her work it out, Lou.’ ‘She can’t keep it up at that pitch for long,’ Louis said. ‘I hope.’ He was right. Ellie’s hoarse, angry cries became hitches and hiccups and moans. Finally there was silence. When Louis went up to check on her, he found she was sleeping on the floor with her arms wrapped tightly around the cat-bed that Church hardly even deigned to sleep in.

He removed it from her arms, put her back in bed, brushed her hair back from her sweaty brow gently, kissed her. On impulse he went into the small room that served as Rachel’s office, wrote a quick note in large block letters on a sheet of paper – I WILL BE BACK TOMORROW, LOVE, CHURCH – and pinned it to the cushion on the bottom of the cat-bed. Then he went into his bedroom, looking for Rachel. Rachel was there. They made love and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Church returned home on the Friday of Louis’s first full week of work; Ellie made much of him, used part of her allowance to buy him a box of cat treats, and nearly slapped Gage once for trying to touch him. This made Gage cry in a way mere parental discipline could never have done. Receiving a rebuke from Ellie was like receiving a rebuke from God.

Looking at Church made him feel sad. It was ridiculous, but that didn’t change the emotion. There was no sign of Winnie Church’s former feistiness. No more did he walk like a gunslinger; now his walk was the slow, careful walk of the convalescent. He allowed Ellie to hand-feed him. He showed no sign of wanting to go outside, not even to the garage. He had changed. Perhaps it was ultimately for the better that he had changed.

Neither Rachel nor Ellie seemed to notice.