No more milk, Louis said, and Rachel had agreed, almost humbly. No more milk.
Louis got back downstairs at around a quarter of two and spent fifteen minutes hunting up the cat. During his search, he found the door which communicated between the kitchen and basement standing ajar, as he suspected he would. He remembered his mother telling him about a cat that had gotten quite good at pawing open old-fashioned latches, such as the one on their cellar door. The cat would just climb the edge of the door, she'd said, and pat the thumb plate of the latch with its paw until the door opened. A cute enough trick, Louis thought, but not one he intended to allow Church to practice often. There was, after all, a lock on the cellar door, too. He found Church dozing under the stove and tossed it out the front door without ceremony. On his way back to the hide-a-bed, he closed the cellar door again.
And this time shot the bolt.
29
In the morning, Gage's temperature was almost normal. His cheeks were chapped, but otherwise he was bright-eyed and full of beans. All at once, in the course of a week it seemed, his meaningless gabble had turned into a slew of words; he would imitate almost anything you said. What Ellie wanted him to say was "shit."
"Say shit, Gage," Ellie said over her oatmeal.
"Shit-Gage," Gage responded agreeably over his own cereal. Louis allowed the cereal on condition that Gage eat it with only a little sugar. And, as usual, Gage seemed to be shampooing with it rather than actually eating it.
Ellie dissolved into giggles.
"Say farts, Gage," she said.
"Farz-Gage," Gage said, grinning through the oatmeal spread across his face.
"Farz-n-shit."
Ellie and Louis broke up. It was impossible not to.
Rachel was not so amused. "That's enough vulgar talk for one morning, I think,"
she said, handing Louis his eggs.
"Shit-n-farz-n-farz-n-shit," Gage sang cheerily, and Ellie hid her giggles in her hands. Rachel's mouth twitched a little, and Louis thought she was looking a hundred percent better in spite of her broken rest. A lot of it was relief, Louis supposed. Gage was better and she was home.
"Don't say that, Gage," Rachel said.
"Pretty," Gage said as a change of pace and threw up all the cereal he had eaten into his bowl.
"Oh, gross-OUT!" Ellie screamed and fled the table.
Louis broke up completely then. He couldn't help it. He laughed until he was crying and cried until he was laughing again. Rachel and Gage stared at him as if he had gone crazy.
No, Louis could have told them. I've been crazy, but I think I'm going to be all right now. I really think I am.
He didn't know if it was over or not, but it felt over; perhaps that would be enough.
And for a while, at least, it was.
30
Gage's virus hung on for a week, then cleared up. A week later he came down with a bout of bronchitis. Ellie also caught this and then Rachel; during the period before Christmas, the three of them went around hacking like very old and wheezy hunting dogs. Louis didn't catch it, and Rachel seemed to hold this against him.