He stopped laughing and held out the hand that wasn’t supporting Gage’s bottom-Gage’s decidedly damp bottom. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr.-”

“Jud Crandall,” he said and shook. “You’re the doc, I guess.”

“Yes. Louis Creed. This is my wife Rachel, my daughter Ellie, and the kid with the bee sting is Gage.”

“Nice to know all of you.”

“I didn’t mean to laugh… that is, we didn’t mean to laugh… it’s just that we’re… a little tired.”

That-the understatement of it-caused him to giggle again. He felt totally exhausted.

Crandall nodded. “Course you are,” he said, which came out: Coss you aaa. He glanced at Rachel. “Why don’t you take your little boy and your daughter over to the house for a minute, Missus Creed? We can put some bakin soda on a washrag and cool that off some. My wife would like to say hello too. She don’t get out too much. Arthritis got bad the last two or three years.”

Rachel glanced at Louis, who nodded.

“That would be very kind of you, Mr. Crandall.”

“Oh, I just answer to Jud,” he said.

There was a sudden loud honk, a motor winding down, and then the big blue moving van was turning-lumbering-into the driveway.

“Oh Christ, and I don’t know where the keys are,” Louis said.

“That’s okay,” Crandall said. “I got a set. Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland… they that lived here before you-gave me a set, oh, must have been fourteen, fifteen years ago. They lived here a long time. Joan Cleveland was my wife’s best friend. She died two years ago. Bill went to that old folks’ apartment complex over in Orrington. I’ll bring em back over. They belong to you now, anyway.”

“You’re very kind, Mr. Crandall,” Rachel said.

“Not at all,” he said. “Lookin forward to having young ‘uns around again.”

Except that the sound of this, as exotic to their Midwestern ears as a foreign language, was yowwuns “You just want to watch em around the road, Missus Creed Lots of big trucks on that road.”