John Irving - The Cider House Rules

Nurse Edna and Nurse Angela listened to Larch as if they were baby birds awaiting a parent's return to the nest; their heads were sunk into their shoulders, their faces were tilted up, their mouths silently forming the words they heard Larch speak-in anticipation of swallowing worms.

Mrs. Grogan wished that she'd brought her knitting; if this was what a meeting was, she never wanted to attend another. But Nurse Caroline began to see; she had a basically brave and a fundamentally political conscience; and once she grasped the portrait of the board as her enemy, she was most attentive to her commander who had so arduously plotted the board's defeat. It was a kind of revolt, and Nurse Caroline was all for revolution.

'Also,' Larch pointed out to her, 'you need to win a few points with the right-wingers on the board; they've colored you pink. Now you color yourself Christian.

They're not only going to end up forgiving you, they're also going to want to promote you. They're going to want you in charge.

'And you,' Larch said, pointing to Nurse Angela.

'Me?' said Nurse Angela; she looked frightened, but Larch knew that she would be the perfect one to recommend Fuzzy Stone. Hadn't she named him? And hadn't she almost dared, all those times, to join Fuzzy in his righteous debate with Dr. Larch? Because Fuzzy knew them all, and loved them all; he knew what they needed, and his beliefs (regarding the abortions) were so much more in sympathy with Nurse Angela's own beliefs.

They are?' Nurse Angela said. 'But I believe in abortion!' {631}

'Of course you do!' Larch said. 'And if you want Saint Cloud's to continue to offer abortions, you better pretend that you're on the other side. You'd better all pretend.'

'What do I pretend, Wilbur?' Nurse Edna asked.

'That it's a great load off your conscience-that I have been caught,' Larch told her. Perhaps, if Fuzzy Stone came back, Nurse Edna's conscience would let her sleep. And Mrs. Grogan could lighten up on the praying; perhaps she would not be so driven to pray, if they had that wonderfully decent Dr. Stone around.

Not that we don't all adore Dr. Larch! Nurse Angela would tell the board. And not that the poor old man didn't believe in himself, and in what he was doing-and for whom he was doing it. He was always devoted to the orphans. It was just that this social problem got the best of him and of his judgment. And how this issue has upset us all! How it has taken its toll!

How, indeed, Nurse Edna thought, her mouth still open, her head lolling between her shoulders-she was more in love with him than ever. He really was devoted to his orphans; he really would do anything for them.

'But what will happen to you, Wilbur-if we expose you?' Nurse Edna asked, a slim tear making its difficult way down her wrinkled cheek.

'I'm almost a hundred years old, Edna,' he said softly.

'I suppose, I'll retire.' 'You won't go away, will you?' Mrs. Grogan asked him.

'I wouldn't get very far, if I tried,' he said.

He had been so convincing about Fuzzy Stone-he had presented them with such marvelous details-that Nurse Caroline was the only one to spot the problem.

'What if Homer Wells won't come here and pretend to be Fuzzy Stone?' she asked Dr. Larch.

'Homer belongs here,' Nurse Angela said, by rote; that Homer Wells belonged to St. Cloud's was (to Nurse Angela) as obvious a fact as the weather-even if this fact (to Homer) had been his life's crucible.{632}

'But he doesn't believe in performing abortions,' Nurse Caroline reminded all the old people. 'When did you last talk to him about it?' she asked Larch. 'I've talked to him j pretty recently, and he believes in your right to perform 1 them-he even sent me here, to help you. And he; believes it should be legal-to have one. But he also says I that he could never, personally, do it-to him, it's killing someone. That's how he sees it. That's what he says.'

'He has near-perfect procedure,' Wilbur Larch said tiredly. When Nurse Caroline looked at all of them, she saw them as if they were dinosaurs-not just prehistoric but also almost willfully too large for the world. How could the planet ever provide enough for them? It was not a very socialist thought, but this was the conviction with which her heart sank as she looked at them.

'Homer Wells thinks it's killing someone,' Nurse Caroline repeated.

As she spoke, she felt she was personally responsible for starving the dinosaurs; the old people looked gaunt and feeble to her-despite their size.

'Is the alternative just waiting and seeing?' Nurse Angela asked.

No one answered her,

' “O Lord, support us all the day long, until the shadows lengthen and the evening cornes,” ' Mrs. Grogan began softly, but Dr. Larch wouldn't hear her out.

'Whatever the alternative is-if there is one-it isn't prayer,' he said.

'It's always been an alternative for me,' Mrs. Grogan said defiantly.

'Then say it to yourself,' he said.

Dr. Larch moved slowly in the small room. He handed Nurse Angela the letter to the board he had written for her. He handed Nurse Caroline her letter, too.

'Just sign them,'he said. 'Read them over, if you want.'

'You don't know that Melony will expose you,' Mrs. Grogan said to him.

'Does it really matter?' Larch asked. 'Just look at me. Do I have a lot of time?' They looked away. 'I don't want {633} to leave it up to Melony. Or to old age,' he added. 'Or to ether,' he admitted, which caused Nurse Edna to cover her face with her hands. 'I prefer to take my chances with Homer Wells.'

Nurse Angela and Nurse Caroline signed the letters. Several examples of the correspondence between Wilbur Larch and Fuzzy Stone were also submitted to the board of trustees; Nurse Angela would include these in the envelope with her letter. The board would understand that all the nurses, and Mrs. Grogan, had discussed the matter together. Wilbur Larch would not need ether to help him sleep-not that night.

Mrs. Grogan, who usually slept like a stone, would be awake all night; she was praying. Nurse Edna took a long walk through the apple orchard on the hill. Even when they all pitched in for the harvest, it was hard to keep up with the apples Homer had provided. Nurse Caroline, who (everyone agreed) was the most alert, was assigned the task of familiarizing herself with the details of the life and training of the zealous missionary Dr. Stone; if the board asked questions-and surely they would-someone had to be ready with the right answers. Despite her youth and her energy, Nurse Caroline was forced to take Fuzzy's history with her to her bed, where sleep overcame her before she got to the part about the children's diarrhea.

Nurse Angela was on duty. She gave the woman who was expecting an abortion another sedative; she gave a woman who was expecting a baby a glass of water; she tucked one of the smaller boys back into his bed-he must have had a dream; he was completely on top of his covers and his feet were on his pillow. Dr. Larch had been so tired that he had gone to bed without kissing any of the boys, so Nurse Angela decided to do this for him-and, perhaps, for herself. When she'd kissed the last boy, her back was hurting her and she sat down on one of the unoccupied beds. She listened to the boys' breathing; she tried to remember Homer Wells as a boy, {634} to recall the particular sound of his breathing; she tried to get a picture of the postures of his style of sleep. It calmed her to think of him. Given old age, given ether, given Melony, she, too, would prefer to take her chances with Homer Wells.

'Please come home, Homer,' Nurse Angela whispered. 'Please come home'.

It was one of the few times that Nurse Angela fell asleep when she was on duty, and the first time, ever, that she fell asleep in the boys' sleeping room. The boys were astonished to discover her with them in the morning; she woke up with the boys climbing on her, and she needed to busy herself to assure the younger ones that no great change in the order of their lives was being heralded by her being found asleep among them. She hoped she was telling the truth. A particularly small and superstitious boy did not believe her; he believed in things he referred to as 'woods creatures.,' which he refused to describe, and he remained convinced that one of these demons had turned Nurse Angela into an orphan overnight.