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"Will I have to go anywhere?" he asked her.
"I imagine so," Candy said.
Homer Wells was trying to imagine it all when he heard the car. Candy must have heard it in the same instant because she sat up and blew out the candle. They sat holding each other on the bed, listening to the car approach them.
It was an old car, or else it was not very well cared for; the valves were tapping and something like the tailpipe was loose and rattled. The car was heavy and low; they heard it scrape on the high crown of the dirt road through the orchard, and the driver had to be familiar with the way through the orchard because the headlights were off--that's how the car had gotten so close without their knowing it was coming.
Candy hurried to unmake the bed; in the darkness, she probably wasn't refolding the blankets and the linen very neatly, and Homer had to help her roll up the mattress.
"It's Wally!" Candy whispered, and indeed the car sounded like the Cadillac, which (since Raymond Kendall's death) had lost its pinpoint timing. In fact, Homer remembered, the Cadillac's muffler was loose, and it had a rebuilt engine, which already needed a valve job. And it was too heavy and low-built a car for proper use on the ragged dirt roads that wound through the orchards.
But how could Wally have managed it? wondered Homer Wells. Wally would have had to crawl to the Cadillac (Homer himself had parked it behind one of the storage barns, where the road was much too rocky and broken up for the wheelchair).
"Maybe it's some local kid," Homer whispered to Candy; the cider house was not unknown to a few locals; the orchard roads had been lovers' lanes for more than one couple.
The heavy car pulled right up to the cider house wall. Candy and Homer felt the front bumper nudge against the building.
"It's Wally!" Candy whispered; why would some local kid bother to park so close? The motor knocked for a while after the key was turned off. And then there was that ping of engine heat from the heavy car as it settled into place.
Homer let go of Candy; he tripped on the doctor's bag as he started for the door, and Candy caught hold of him, pulling him back against her.
"I'm not going to make him crawl in here," Homer said to her, but Candy could not make herself move out of the darkest corner of the cider house.
Homer picked up the doctor's bag and felt his way into the dark kitchen; his hand groped for the light switch, his hand brushing over his new list of rules. He had not heard the car door open, but he suddenly heard low voices; he paused, with his hand on the light switch. Oh Wally, this isn't fair! he thought; if there were voices Homer knew that Wally had brought Angel with him. That would have made it easier for Wally to get to the Cadillac--Angel could have brought the car around for him. But regardless of the torment that burdened Wally, Homer was angry at his friend for involving Angel. But wasn't Angel involved in it, anyway? Homer wondered. (Now they turned the headlights on--to light their way to the door?)
It was not the way Homer had imagined telling them both, but what did the way matter? Homer Wells turned on the light, which momentarily blinded him. He thought that he must be as lit up as a Christmas tree in the cider house door. And, he thought, wasn't it fitting that it had been the Cadillac that had rescued him from St. Cloud's, and now here was the Cadillac--in a way, come to rescue him again? For here he was, with the well-worn doctor's bag in hand, at last prepared to tell the truth--ready, at last, to take his medicine.
In the bright light, he nervously picked the imaginary lint off his clothes. He remembered what the neurologists call it: carphologia.
He tightened his grip on Dr. Larch's bag and peered into the darkness. Suddenly, it was clear to him--where he was going. He was only what he always was: an orphan who'd never been adopted. He had managed to steal some time away from the orphanage, but St. Cloud's had the only legitimate claim to him. In his forties, a man should know where he belongs.
Dr. Larch began another letter to Harry Truman, before he remembered that Eisenhower had been President for a few years. He had written several letters to Roosevelt after Roosevelt had died, and he'd written many more to Eleanor, but the Roosevelts had never written back. Harry Truman had never written back, either, and Larch couldn't remember if he'd written to Mrs. Truman, too, or to Truman's daughter--whichever one it was
hadn't answered, either.
He tried not to get depressed at the thought of writing to Eisenhower; he tried to recall how he'd begun the last one. He'd begun "Dear General," but after that he couldn't remember; he'd said something about how he'd been a doctor to the "troops" in World War I--he'd tried to sneak up on his real subject, a kind of flanking maneuver. Maybe it was time to try Mrs. Eisenhower. But when Larch wrote "Dear Mamie," he felt ridiculous.
Oh, what's the use? thought Wilbur Larch. You have to be crazy to write to Eisenhower about abortion. He tore the letter out of the typewriter; out of the blue, he decided that the President's head resembled that of a baby.
Then he remembered that Melony had the questionnaire. There was no time to fool around. He told Nurse Angela that there would be a meeting after supper, after the children had been put to bed.
Nurse Angela could not recall that there had ever been a meeting at St. Cloud's, except that most uncomfortable meeting with the board of trustees; she assumed that if there was going to be another meeting, the board was probably involved.
"Oh dear, a meeting," Nurse Edna said; she fretted all day.
Mrs. Grogan was worried, too. She was concerned about where the meeting would take place--as if it would be possible to miss it or not find it.
"I think we can narrow down the possibilities," Nurse Caroline assured her.
All day Wilbur Larch worked in Nurse Angela's office. No babies were born that day; and the one woman who wanted an abortion was welcomed, and made comfortable, and told that she could have her abortion tomorrow. Wilbur Larch would not leave Nurse Angela's office, not even for lunch, not even for tea, and not even for the Lord's work.
He was reviewing and putting the finishing touches to the history of Fuzzy Stone, that good doctor; Larch was also writing the obituary of Homer Wells. Poor Homer's heart: the rigors of an agricultural life and a high-cholesterol diet--"An orphan is a meat eater, an orphan is always hungry," wrote Wilbur Larch.
Dr. Stone, on the other hand, was not a typical orphan. Larch characterized Fuzzy Stone as "lean and mean." After all, who among the orphans had ever dared to challenge Dr. Larch? And here was Fuzzy Stone threatening to turn his old mentor in! Not only did he dare to attack Dr. Larch's beliefs regarding the abortions, but also Fuzzy had such strong views on the subject that he repeatedly threatened to expose Dr. Larch to the board. And now Fuzzy's zeal was fired with the self-righteousness of a true missionary, for Larch knew that the safest place for Dr. Stone to be practicing medicine was where the board could never trace him. Fuzzy was fighting diarrhea amid the dying children of Asia. Larch had just read an article in The Lancet about diarrhea being the number one killer of kids in that part of the world. (Homer Wells, who did not know that his heart had given out, had read the same article.) The other little details about Burma and India--which lent such a missionary authenticity to Fuzzy's angry letters to Wilbur Larch--were things that Larch remembered hearing about Wally's excruciating travels there.
It had been an exhausting day for Larch, who had also written--in other voices--to the board of trustees. He would have preferred ether to supper, although supper, he knew, would make him more stable for the meeting that his bullied staff was dreading. Larch read such a short passage from Jane Eyre that every girl in the girls' division was still awake when he left them, and he read such a short section of David Copperfield that two of the boys complained.
"I'm sorry, that's all that happened to David Copperfield today," Dr. Larch told them. "David didn't have a very big day."
