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"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.
"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 pretty recently, and he believes in your right to perform them--he even sent me here, to help you. And he believes it should be legal--to have one. But he also says 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 comes,' " 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 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, 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.
"When you fall asleep, the bark grows over your eyes," he explained to her.
"Heavens, no!" she said.
"Yes," he said. "And then only the trees will adopt you."
"Nonsense," Nurse Angela told him. "The trees are just trees. And bark can't hurt you."
"Some of the trees used to be people," the little boy told her. "They used to be orphans."
"No, no, dear. No, they didn't," Nurse Angela said. She made him sit on her lap.
Although it was early in the morning, she could hear the typewriter; Dr. Larch had more to say. The little boy in her lap was trembling; he was listening to the typewriter, too.
"Do you hear that?" he whispered to Nurse Angela.
"The typewriter?" she asked him.
"The what?" he said.
