John Irving - The Cider House Rules

More shocking (to Homer's mind) was what he could gather of his own feelings. He already knew that he loved Candy, and wanted her; now he discovered that:-more than wanting her-he wanted her child.

They were just another trapped couple, more comfortable with their illusions than they were with the reality of their situation.

'After the harvest,' Homer said to Candy, 'we'll go to Saint Cloud's. I'll say that they need me there. It's probably true, anyway. And because of the war, no one else is paying attention to them. You could tell your dad it's just another kind of war effort. We could both tell Olive that we feel an obligation-to be where we're really needed; to be of more use.'

'You want me to have the baby?' Candy asked him.

'I want you to have our baby,' said Homer Wells. 'And after the baby's born, and you're both recovered, we'll come back here. We'll tell your dad, and Olive-or we'll write them-that we've fallen in love, and that we've gotten married.' {504}

'And that we conceived a child before we did any of that?' Candy asked.

Homer Wells, who saw the real stars above the blackened coast of Maine-bright and cold-envisioned the whole story very clearly. 'We'll say the baby is adopted,' he said. 'We'll say we felt a further obligation-to the orphanage. I do feel that, in a way, anyway,' he added.

'Our baby is adopted?' Candy asked. 'So we have a baby who thinks it's an orphan?'

'No,' Homer said. 'We have our own baby, and it knows it's all ours. We just say it's adopted-just for Olive's sake, and just for a while.'

'That's lying,' Candy said.

'Right,' said Homer Wells. That's lying for a while.'

'Maybe-when we came back, with the baby-maybe we wouldn't have to say it was adopted. Maybe we could tell the truth then,' Candy said.

'Maybe,' Homer said. Maybe everything is waiting and seeing, he thought. He put his mouth on the back of her neck; he nuzzled into her hair.

'If we thought that Olive could accept it, if we thought that she could accept-about Wally,' Candy added, 'then we wouldn't have to lie about the baby being adopted, would we?'

'Right,' said Homer Wells. What is all this worrying about lying? he wondered, holding Candy tightly as she softly cried. Was it true that Wilbur Larch had no memory of Homer's mother? Was it true that Nurse Angela and Nurse Edna had no memory of his mother, either? Maybe it was true, but Homer Wells would never have blamed them if they had lied; they would have lied only to protect him. And if they'd remembered his mother, and his mother was a monster, wasn't it better that they'd lied? To orphans, not every truth is wanted.

And if Homer had discovered that Wally had died in terrible pain or with prolonged suffering-if Wally had been tortured, or had burned to death, or had been eaten by an animal-Homer certainly would have lied about {505} that. If Homer Wells had been an amateur historian, he would have been as much of a revisionist as Wilbur Larch-he would have tried to make everything come out all right in the end. Homer Wells, who always said to Wilbur Larch that he (Larch) was the doctor, was more of a doctor than he knew.

The first night of cider making he shared the work of the press and grinder with Meany Hyde and Everett Taft; Big Dot and her kid sister, Debra Pettigrew, were the bottlers. Debra was sullen at the prospect of messy work; she complained about the slopping and the spilling, and her irritation was further enhanced by the presence of Homer Wells, to whom she had not been speaking- Debra's understanding that Candy and Homer had become partners in a certain grief was markedly colored by her suspicion that Candy and Homer had become partners in a certain pleasure, too. At least Debra had not reacted generously to Homer's suggestion that they just be friends. Homer was puzzled by Debra's hostility, and assumed that his years in the orphanage had deprived him of some perfectly sensible explanation for her behavior. It seemed to Homer that Debra had always denied him access to anything more than her friendship. Why was she now incensed that he asked no more of her than that?

Meany Hyde announced to Homer and Everett Taft that this would be his first and last night press of the harvest because he wanted to stay home with Florence -'Now that her time is approachin',' Meany said.

When Mr. Rose pressed cider, there was a very different feeling in the fermented air. For one thing, everything went more quickly; the pressing was a kind of contest. For another, there was a tension that Mr. Rose's authority created-and the knowledge of those tired men asleep, or trying to sleep, in the next room, lent to the working of the grinder and the press a sense of hurry (and of perfection) that one feels only on the edge of exhaustion. {506}

Debra Pettigrew's future heaviness grew more and more apparent the wetter she got; there was a matching slope in the sisters' shoulders, and even a slackness in the backs of Debra's arms that would one day yield the massive jiggles that shivered through Big Dot. In sisterly imitation, they wiped the sweat from their eyes with their biceps-not wanting to touch their faces with their cider-sweet and sticky hands.

After midnight, Olive brought them cold beer and hot coffee. When she had gone, Meany Hyde said, 'That Missus Worthington is a thoughtful woman-here she is not only bringin' us somethin' but givin' us a choice.'

'And her with Wally gone,' said Everett Taft. 'It's a wonder she even thought of us.'

Whatever is brought to me, whatever is coming, Homer thought, I will not move out of its way. Life was finally about to happen to him-the journey he proposed making, back to St. Cloud's, was actually going to give him his freedom from St. Cloud's. He would have a baby (if not a wife, too); he would need a job.

Of course I'll take the baby trees, and plant them, he was thinking-as if apple trees would satisfy St. Cloud's, as if his planting them would satisfy what Wilbur Larch wanted from him.

By the end of the harvest, the light grew grayer and the orchards were darker in the daytime, although more light passed through the empty trees. The picking crew's inexperience was visible in the shriveled apples still clinging to the hard-to-reach limbs. The ground was already frozen in St. Cloud's. Homer would have to make a special trip for the baby trees. He would plant them in the spring; it would be a spring baby.

Homer and Candy worked only the night shifts at Cape Kenneth Hospital now. The days when Ray was building the torpedoes were the days Homer could spend with Candy, in her room above the lobster pound.

There was a freedom about their lovemaking, now that Candy was already pregnant. Although she could {507} not tell him-not yet-Candy loved making love to Homer Wells; she enjoyed herself much more than she had been able to with Wally. But she could not bring herself to say aloud that anything was better than with Wally; although making love was better with Homer, she doubted that this was Wally's fault. She arid Wally had never had the time to feel so free.

'The girl and I are coming,' Homer wrote to Dr. Larch. 'She's going to have my baby-neither an abortion nor an orphan.'

'A wanted baby!' Nurse Angela said. 'We're going to have a wanted baby!'

'If not a planned one,' said Wilbur Larch, who stared out the window of Nurse Angela's office as if the hill that rose outside the window had personally risen against him. 'And I suppose he's going to plant the damn trees,' said Dr Larch. 'What does he want a baby for? How can he have a baby and go to college-or to medical school?'

'When was he ever going to go to medical school, Wilbur?' Nurse Edna asked.

'I knew he'd be back!' Nurse Angela shouted. 'He belongs with us!'

'Yes, he does,' said Wilbur Larch. Involuntarily, and somewhat stiffly, his back straightened, his knees braced, his arms reached out and the fingers of his hands partially opened-as if he were preparing to receive a heavy package. Nurse Edna shuddered to see him in such a pose, which reminded her of the fetus from Three Mile Falls, that dead baby whose posture of such extreme supplication had been arranged by Homer Wells.