John Irving - The Cider House Rules

She could not see very clearly, but she would have known if Rose Rose was there; and if Mr. Rose had been there, Candy knew he would have spoken to her.

The first time she heard the sound from the cider house-it came from directly under her-Candy thought it was the baby, just babbling or rnaybe beginning to cry.

'When your Wally was a boy, it was different-out there,' Black Pan said to her. 'It look like another country then.' His gaze was fixed upon the twinkling coast. {691}

The noise under the cider house roof grew more distinct, and Peaches said, 'Ain't it a pretty night, ma'am?' It was decidedly not a pretty night; it was a darker night than usual, and the sound from the cider house was now comprehensible to her. For a second, she thought she was going to be sick.

'Careful when you stand up, Missus Worthington,' Muddy said to her, but Candy stamped her feet on the roof; then she knelt down and began to beat on the tin with both her hands.

'It's so old a roof, Missus Worthington,' Black Pan said to her. 'You best be careful you don't fall through it.'

'Get me down, get me off,' Candy said to them. Muddy and Peaches took her arms and Black Pan preceded them to the ladder. Even walking down the roof, Candy tried to keep stamping her feet.

Going down the ladder, she called, 'Rose!' She could not say the ridiculous name of 'Rose Rose,' and she couldn't make herself say 'Mister Rose,' either. 'Rose!' she called ambiguously. She wasn't even sure which one she was summoning, but it was Mr. Rose who met her at the cider house door. He was still getting dressed-he was tucking his shirt in and buttoning his trousers. He looked thinner and older to her than he'd looked before, and although he smiled at her, he didn't look into her eyes with his usual confidence-with his usual, polite indifference.

'Don't you speak to me,' Candy told him, but what would he have said? 'Your daughter and her baby are coming with me.' Candy walked by him into the cider house; she felt the tattered rules with her fingers as she found the light.

Rose Rose was sitting up on the bed. She had pulled her blue jeans on, but she hadn't closed them, and she had pulled the T-shirt on, but she held Candy's bathing suit in her lap-she was unfamiliar with wearing it, and she'd not been able to put it on in a hurry. She had found only one of her work shoes, which she held in one hand.{692} The other one was under the bed. Candy found it and put it on the correct foot-Rose Rose wore no socks. Then Candy tied the laces for her, too. Rose Rose just sat on the bed while Candy put on and tied her other shoe.

'You're coming with me. Your baby, too,' Candy told the girl.

'Yes, ma'am,' Rose Rose said.

Candy took the bathing suit from her and used the suit to wipe the tears from Rose Rose's face.

'You're fine, you're just fine,' Candy said to the girl. 'And you're going to feel better. No one's going to hurt you.'

Baby Rose was sound asleep, and Candy was careful not to wake her when she picked her up and handed her to her mother. Rose Rose moved uncertainly and Candy put her arm around her when they walked out of the cider house together. 'You're going to be just fine,' Candy said to Rose Rose; she kissed the young woman on her neck, and Rose Rose, who was sweating, leaned against her.

Mr. Rose was standing in the darkness between the Jeep and the cider house, but the rest of the men still sat on the roof.

'You comin' back,' Mr. Rose said-nothing was raised at the end of his voice; it was not a question.

'I told you not to speak to me,' Candy told him. She helped Rose Rose and her baby into the Jeep.

'I was speakin' to my daughter,' Mr. Rose said with dignity.

But Rose Rose would not answer her father. She sat like a statue of a woman with a baby in her arms while Candy turned the Jeep around and drove away. Before they went into the fancy house together, Rose Rose slumped against Candy and said to her, 'I never could do nothin' about it.'

'Of course you couldn't,' Candy told her.

'He hated the father of the other one,' Rose Rose said. 'He been after me ever since.' {693}

'You're going to be all right now,' Candy told the girl before they went inside; through the windows, they could watch Wally flying back and forth in the house.

'I know my father, Missus Worthington,' Rose Rose whispered. 'He gonna want me back.'

'He can't have you,' Candy told her. 'He can't make you go back to him.'

'He makes his own rules,' said Rose Rose.

'And the father of your beautiful daughter?' Candy asked, holding the door open for Rose Rose and her baby girl. 'Where is he?'

'My father cut him up. He long gone,' Rose Rose said. 'He don't wanna be involved with me no more.'

'And your mother?' Candy asked, as they went in the house.

'She dead,' Rose Rose said.

That was when Wally told Candy that Dr. Larch was dead, too. She would not have known it to look at Homer, who was all business; an orphan learns how to hold back, how to keep things in.

'Are you all right?' Candy asked Homer, while Wally wheeled Baby Rose around the downstairs of the house and Angel took Rose Rose to his room, which was prepared for her.

'I'm a little nervous,' Homer admitted to Candy. 'It's certainly not a matter of technique, and I've got everything I need-I know I can do it. It's just that, to me, it is a living human being. I can't describe to you what it feels like-just to hold the curette, for example. When living tissue is touched, it responds-somehow,' Homer said, but Candy cut him off.

'It may help you to know who the father is,' she said. 'It's Mister Rose. Her father is the father-if that makes it any easier.'

The crisply made-up bed in Angel's childhood room and the gleaming instruments-which were displayed so neatly in the adjacent bed-made Rose Rose both talkative and rigid.{694}

'This don't look like no fun,' the girl said, holding her fists in her lap. 'They took the other one out through the top-not the way she was supposed to come out,' Rose Rose explained. She'd had a Caesarean, Homer Wells could see, perhaps because of her age and her size at the time. But Homer could not quite convince her that this time everything would be much easier. He wouldn't need to take anything 'out through the top.'

'Go stay with Wally, Angel,' Candy told the boy. 'Go give Baby Rose a ride in the wheelchair. Knock over all the furniture, if you want,'she told him, kissing her son.

'Yeah, you go away,' Rose Rose told Angel.

'Don't be afraid,' Candy told Rose Rose. 'Homer knows what he's doing. You're in very safe hands.' She swabbed Rose Rose with the red Merthiolate, while Homer began to show Rose Rose the instruments.

'This is a speculum,'he said to her. 'It may feel cold, but it doesn't hurt. You won't feel any of this,' he assured her. These are dilators,' Homer said, but Rose Rose shut her eyes.

'You done this before, ain't you?' Rose Rose asked him. He had the ether ready.

'Just breathe normally,' he told her. At the first whiff, she opened her eyes and turned her face away from the mask, but Candy put her hands at Rose Rose's temples and very gently moved her head into the right position. The first smell is the sharpest,' said Homer Wells.

'Please, have you done this before?' Rose Rose asked him. Her voice was muffled under the mask.

'I'm a good doctor-I really am,' Homer Wells told her. 'Just relax, and breathe normally.'

'Don't be afraid,' Rose Rose heard Candy tell her just before the ether began to take her out of her body.

'I can ride it,' she said. Rose Rose meant a bicycle. Homer watched her wiggle her toes. Rose Rose was getting her first feel of the sand; the beach was warm. The tide was coming in; she felt the water around her ankles. 'No big deal,' she murmured. Rose Rose meant the ocean.{695}