John Irving - The Cider House Rules

Nurse Edna had tried to keep a little supper warm for Homer and Candy; she had put the disappointing pot roast in the instrument sterilizer, which she checked from time to time. Mrs. Grogan, who was praying in the girls' division, did not see the Cadillac come up the hill. Nurse Angela was in the delivery room, shaving a woman who had already broken her bag of waters.

Homer and Candy passed by the empty and brightly lit dispensary; they peeked into Nurse Angela's empty office. Homer knew better than to peek into the delivery room when the light was on. From the dormitory, they could hear Dr. Larch's reading voice. Although Candy held tightly to his hand, Homer Wells was inclined to hurry-in order not to miss the bedtime story.

Meany Hyde's wife, Florence, was delivered of a healthy baby boy-nine pounds, two ounces-shortly after Thanksgiving, which Olive Worthington and Raymond Kendall celebrated in a fairly formal and quiet fashion at Ocean View. Olive invited all her apple workers for an open house; she asked Ray to help her host the occasion. Meany Hyde insisted to Olive that his new baby was a definite sign that Wally was alive.

'Yes, I know he's alive,' Olive told Meany calmly.

It was not too trying a day for her, but she did find {513} Debra Pettigrew sitting on Homer's bed in Wally's room, staring at the photograph of Candy teaching Homer how to swim. And not long after ushering Debra from the room, Olive discovered Grace Lynch sitting in the same dent Debra had made on Homer's bed. Grace, however, was staring at the questionnaire from the board of trustees at St. Cloud's, the one that Homer had never filled out and had left tacked to the wall of Wally's room as if they were unwritten rules.

And Big Dot Taft broke down in the kitchen while telling Olive about one of her dreams. Everett had found her, in her sleep, dragging herself across the bedroom floor toward the bathroom. 'I didn't have noi legs,' Big Dot told Olive. 'It was the night Florence's boy was born, and I woke up without no legs-only I didn't really wake up, I was just dreamin' that there was nothin' left of me, below the waist.'

'Except that you had to go to the bathroom,' Everett Taft pointed out. 'Otherwise, why was you crawlin' on the floor?'

'The important thing was that I was injured,' Big Dot told her husband crossly.

'Oh,' said Everett Taft.

'The point is,' Meany Hyde said to Olive, 'my baby was born just fine but Big Dot had a dream that she couldn't walk. Don'tcha see, Olive?' Meany asked. 'I think God is tellin' us that Wally is okay-that he's alive-but that he's been hurt.'

'He's injured, or somethin',' Big Dot said, bursting into tears.

'Of course,' Olive said abruptly. 'It's what I've always thought.' Her words startled them all-even Ray Kendall. 'If he weren't injured, we would have heard from him by now. And if he weren't alive, I'd know it,' Olive said. She handed her handkerchief to Big Dot Taft and lit a fresh cigarette from the butt end of the cigarette she had almost finished.

Thanksgiving at St. Cloud's was not nearly so mys-{514} tical, and the food wasn't as good, but everyone had a good time. In lieu of balloons, Dr. Larch distributed prophylactics to Nurse Angela and Nurse Edna, who- despite their distaste for the job-inflated the rubbers and dipped them in bowls of green and red food coloring. When the coloring dried, Mrs. Grogan painted the orphans' names on the rubbers, and Homer and Candy hid the brightly colored prophylactics all over the orphanage.

'It's a rubber hunt,' said Wilbur Larch. 'We should have saved the idea for Easter. Eggs are expensive.'

'We'll not give up eggs for Easter, Wilbur,' Nurse Edna said indignantly.

'I suppose not,' Dr. Larch said tiredly.

Olive Worthington had sent a case of champagne. Wilbur Larch had never drunk a drop of champagne before-he was not a drinker-but the way the bubbles tightened the roof of his mouth, opened his nasal passages and made his eyes feel dry but clear reminded him of that lightest of vapors, of that famous inhalation he was addicted to. He drank and drank. He even sang for the children-something he'd heard the French soldiers sing in World War I. That song was no more suitable for children than those prophylactics were, but-because of an ignorance of French and an innocence of sex-the French song (which was filthier than any limerick Wally Worthington would ever know) was mistaken for a pleasing ditty and the green and red rubbers were mistaken for balloons.

Even Nurse Edna got a little drunk; champagne was new to her, too, although she sometimes put sherry in hot soup. Nurse Angela didn't drink, but she became emotional -to the degree that she threw her arms around Homer's neck and kissed him mightily, all the while proclaiming that the spirit of St. Cloud's had been in a noticeable slump during Homer's absence and that Homer had been sent by a clearly sympathetic God to revive them. {515}

'But Homer's not staying,' Wilbur Larch said, hiccuping.

They had all been impressed with Candy, whom even Dr. Larch referred to as 'our angelic volunteer,' and over whom Mrs. Grogan daily fussed as if Candy were her daughter. Nurse Edna busied herself around the young lovers the way a moth flaps around a light.

On Thanksgiving Day, Dr. Larch even flirted with Candy-a little. I never saw such a pretty girl who was willing to give enemas,' Larch said, patting Candy's knee.

'I'm not squeamish,' Candy told him.

'There's no room for squeamishness here,' Larch said, burping.

'There's still a little room for sensitivity, I hope,' Nurse Angela complained. Larch had never praised her or Nurse Edna for their willingness to give enemas.

'Of course, I wanted him to go to medical school, to be a doctor, to come back and relieve me here,' Wilbur Larch told Candy in a loud voice-as if Homer weren't sitting right across the table. Larch patted Candy's knee again. 'But that's all right!' he said. 'Who wouldn't rather get a girl like you pregnant-and grow apples!' He said something in French and drank another glass of champagne. 'Of course,' he whispered to Candy, 'he doesn't need to go to medical school to be a doctor here. There's just a few more procedures he ought to be familiar with. Hell!' Larch said, indicating the orphans eating their turkey-each with a colored rubber, like a name tag, stationed in front of his or her plate, 'this isn't a bad place to raise a family. And if Ktomer ever gets around to planting the damn hillside, then you'll get to grow apples here, too.'

When Dr. Larch fell asleep at the table, Homer Wells carried him back to the dispensary. In his time away from St. Cloud's, Homer wondered, had Dr. Larch gone completely crazy? There was no one to ask. Mrs Grogan, Nurse Edna, and especially Nurse Angela might agree {516} that Larch had traveled around the bend-that he had one oar out of the water, as Ray Kendall would say; that he had one wheel in the sand, as Wally used to say-but Mrs. Grogan and the nurses would most emphatically defend Dr. Larch. Their view, Homer could tell, was that Homer had left them for too long, that his judgment was rusty. Fortunately, Homer's obstetrical procedure had not suffered from his absence.

Pregnant women have no respect for holidays. The trains run at different times, but they run. It was after six in the evening when the woman arrived in St. Cloud's; although it was not his usual practice, the stationmaster escorted her to the hospital entrance because the woman was already engaged in the second stage of labor-her membranes were ruptured, and her bearing-down pains were at regular intervals. Homer Wells was palpating the baby's head through the perineum when Nurse Angela informed him that Dr. Larch was too drunk to be aroused, and Nurse Edna had also fallen asleep. Homer was concerned that the perineum showed signs of bulging, and the woman's response to a rather heavy ether sedation was quite slow.