The Cider House Rules (75 page)

They had another thing to be careful about. Because Wally was sterile, Candy’s becoming pregnant would seem too miraculous to be believed. Because Wally’s sterility was not the result of encephalitis, it would take him several years to discover that he was sterile. He would remember the unclean instrumentation of his urethra, but he would remember it gradually—the way he remembered the rest of Burma. Once he learned that his epididymis was sealed, for life, the specificity of the various bamboo shoots came back to him; sometimes it seemed to him that he could recall, exactly, every catheter that had ever relieved him.

There is no difference in the feeling of orgasm; Wally was fond of emphasizing this particular point to Homer Wells. Wally called it “shooting”; Homer was the only person with whom Wally could joke about his condition. “I can still aim the gun, and the gun still goes off,” Wally said, “and it still goes off with a bang—for me,” he said. “It’s just that no one ever finds the bullet.”

Wally remembered, from time to time, that when one of the Burmese on the sampan would instrument him—for which he was always so grateful—there was never very much bleeding, even when the bamboo shoot was not exactly straight; his blood seemed pale and minimal by comparison to the bloodier stains of the betel juice that everyone spat on the deck.

If Homer Wells got Candy pregnant again, Candy made him promise that—this time
—he
would give her an abortion. She could not fool Wally about another trip to St. Cloud’s; she
would
not fool him, she said. And so this added consideration—that Candy never get pregnant—contributed to the moderation of their coupling, which was almost always managed under conditions harsh enough to win the approval of New England’s founding fathers. It still would not have won Wilbur Larch’s approval.

They established no pattern of behavior that could make anyone suspicious. (As if everyone wasn’t already suspicious, regardless of how they behaved!) There was no one place that they met, no one day, no one time of day. In the winter months, when Angel—after school—would take Wally for a swim in the indoor pool of a private boys’ academy, Homer and Candy could manage an occasional late afternoon together. But Homer’s bed, which had been Olive’s bed, which also suffered from all the master-bedroom connotations, was full of conflicting emotions for them both—and the bed Candy shared with Wally had its own set of taboos. Rarely, they took trips. The cider house was fit to be used only in the late summer, after it had been made ready for the picking crew; but ever since Angel had learned to drive, he’d been given the run of the orchards—he was allowed to drive any of the farm vehicles, just so he kept off the public roads, and his pudgy pal, Pete Hyde, often drove around with him. Homer suspected that Pete and Angel used the cider house to drink beer in secret, whenever they could convince Herb Fowler to buy beer for them; or that they went there for the fifteen-year-old thrill of smoking cigarettes. And at night, trapped by their own insomnia, where could Candy and Homer have disappeared to—now that Angel was an insomniac, too?

Homer Wells knew that there was no reason ever to have an accident—no reason for Candy ever to get pregnant (certainly not, knowing what Homer knew)—and no reason for them ever to get caught, either. But by being so reasonable and so discreet, Homer regretted the loss of the passion with which he and Candy had at first collided. Although she insisted (and he agreed), he thought it was quite unnecessary for him to write to Dr. Larch to request (which he did) the proper equipment with which to treat the emergency that Candy feared.

For fifteen years Homer had told her: “You won’t get pregnant. You can’t.”

“Do you have everything you need, if you need it?” she always asked him.

“Yes,” he said.

He’d gotten better about not saying “Right,” since Wally had hit him. And when the word would slip out, it was often attended by an equally involuntary wince—as if in anticipation of another punch, as if anyone he might say the word to would feel as strongly about it as Wally and might be as fast as Mr. Rose.

Wilbur Larch had misunderstood about the instruments Homer had requested. For fifteen years, he’d misunderstood. Larch had sent everything promptly. There were both a medium and a large vaginal speculum, and an Auvard’s weighted speculum; there was a set of dilators with Douglass points—and one uterine sound, one uterine biopsy curette, two vulsellum forceps, a set of Sim’s uterine curettes, and a Rheinstater’s uterine flushing curette. Larch sent enough Dakin’s solution and red Merthiolate (and enough sterile vulval pads) for Homer Wells to perform abortions into the next century.

“I’m NOT going into the business!” Homer wrote to Dr. Larch, but Larch remained encouraged by the simple fact of Homer’s possessing the necessary equipment.

Homer wrapped the instruments in a whole bale of cotton and gauze; he then put the bundle in a waterproof bag that had once contained Angel’s diapers. He stored the instruments, along with the Merthiolate, the Dakin’s solution and all the vulval pads, in the very back of the upstairs linen closet. Homer kept the ether in the shed with the lawn and garden tools. Ether was flammable; he didn’t want it in the house.

However, in the one and a half times a month that he could be with Candy, it jolted him to realize that in their union there was (even after fifteen years) a frenzy with which they clung to each other that would not have appeared pale in comparison to their first such meeting in the cider house. But since Melony had first introduced Homer Wells to sex—and it had been only during that brief period of what seemed to him to be his “married life” with Candy in St. Cloud’s that he had experienced anything of what sex ideally is—it was Homer’s opinion that sex had little to do with love; that love was much more focused and felt in moments of tenderness and of concern. It had been years (for example) since he had seen Candy asleep, or had been the one to waken her; years since he had watched her fall asleep, and had stayed awake to watch her.

This tenderness he reserved for Angel. When Angel had been smaller, Homer had occasionally encountered Candy in the darkness of Angel’s room, and they had even shared a few evenings of that silent wondering parents engage in while watching their children sleep. But Homer had fallen asleep, many nights, in the empty twin bed beside Angel’s bed, just listening to the breathing of his son; after all, Homer had spent his childhood trying to sleep in a room where an entire population lay breathing.

And was there a feeling more full of love, he wondered, than to wake up a child in the morning? Full of love and apology, both, Homer Wells concluded. It was with Angel that he felt love like that; if Candy had such moments, Homer imagined, she had to have them with Wally. An orphan’s pleasures are compartmental. In St. Cloud’s, it was best to be hungry in the morning; they didn’t run out of pancakes. There was sex, which called for good weather (and, of course, Melony); there were acts of wandering and destruction (Melony again, in any weather); there were solitary acts and moments of reflection, which could occur only when it rained (and only without Melony). As much as he desired a family, Homer Wells was not trained to appreciate a family’s flexible nature.

That July—it was one hot and lazy Saturday afternoon—Homer was floating in the pool; he had been in the orchards all morning, mulching the young trees. Angel had been working with him, and now Angel was out of the pool, but still dripping wet; he was tossing a baseball back and forth with Wally. Wally sat on the lawn, on a slight knoll above the pool, and Angel stood on the deck. They would throw the hardball back and forth, not talking but concentrating on their throws; Wally would fire the ball with considerable sting for someone in a sitting position but Angel had more zip on the ball. The ball popped pleasantly in their big gloves.

Candy came down to the pool from the apple-mart office. She was wearing her work clothes—jeans; a khaki field shirt, with oversized pockets and epaulettes; work boots; a Boston Red Sox baseball cap with the visor turned backward. (She cared more about protecting her hair from the sun than her face, because in the summer her blondness could turn whiter, which she knew showed more of the gray.)

“I know the men are out of the fields at noon on Saturday,” she said, her hands on her hips, “but the women are working in the mart until three.”

Homer stopped floating; he let his feet touch the bottom and he stood chest deep in the pool, looking at Candy. Wally looked over his shoulder at her, then fired the ball to Angel, who fired it back.

“Please hold the ball, while I’m trying to say something,” Candy said.

Wally held the ball. “What are you trying to say?” he asked.

“I think that on Saturdays, as long as there are people working at the mart, you should refrain from playing at the pool—everyone can hear you, and I think it kind of rubs it in.”

“Rubs what in?” Angel asked.

“That you get to play and live in the fancy house, as they call it, and they get to work,” Candy said.

“Pete’s not working,” Angel said. “Pete got a ride to the beach.”

“Pete Hyde is a kid,” Candy said. “His mother is still working.”

“Well, I’m a kid, aren’t I?” Angel asked playfully.

“Well, I don’t mean you, especially,” Candy said. “What about you two?” she asked Homer and Wally.

“Well, I’m a kid, too,” Wally said, throwing the ball back to Angel. “I just play all day long, anyway.” Angel laughed and threw the ball back, but Homer Wells glowered at Candy from his chest-deep position in the pool.

“Do
you
see what I mean, Homer?” Candy asked him. Homer allowed himself to sink; he held his breath for a while, and when he came up for air, Candy was going through the kitchen door. The screen door banged.

“Oh, come on!” Wally called after her. “Of course we see what you mean!”

And that was when Homer said it. Homer spat out some water and said to Angel, “Go tell your mother that if she changes her clothes, we’ll take her to the beach.”

Angel was halfway to the house before it registered with Homer what he’d said, and Wally said to Angel, “Tell her to change her mood, too.”

When Angel went in the kitchen, Wally said, “I don’t think he even noticed what you said, old boy.”

“It’s just that she
is
such a mother to him—I can’t help thinking of her that way,” Homer said.

“I’m sure it’s hard,” Wally said, “not to think of her any way that you want.”

“What?” Homer asked.

“She certainly is manipulative, isn’t she?” Wally asked him. Homer ducked his head underwater again—it was a cool place to think.

“Manipulative?” he said, when he surfaced.

“Well, someone has to know what to do,” Wally said. “Someone’s got to make the decisions.”

Homer Wells, who felt the word “Right!” rising in him, like an unstoppable bubble surfacing from the swimming pool, put his hand over his mouth and looked at Wally, who was sitting on the knoll on the lawn, his back very straight, the baseball mitt in his lap, the baseball held in his hand (his throwing arm cocked). Homer Wells knew that if the word had escaped him, the ball would have been on its fast way to him as soon as the word was in the air—and quite probably before Homer could have ducked underwater again.

“She has a point,” said Homer Wells.

“She always does,” Wally said. “And she’s aging well, don’t you think?”

“Very well,” Homer said, climbing out of the pool. He buried his wet face in a towel; with his eyes closed, he could see the delicate latticework of wrinkles at the corners of Candy’s eyes and the freckles on her chest, where, over the years, she’d allowed herself too much sun. There were also the very few but deeper wrinkles that ran across her otherwise taut abdomen; they were stretch marks, Homer knew; he wondered if Wally knew what they were from. And there were the veins that had gained more prominence in the backs of Candy’s long hands, but she was still a beautiful woman.

When Angel and Candy came out of the house—they were ready to go to the beach—Homer watched his son closely, to see if Angel had noticed that Homer had referred to Candy as “your mother,” but Angel was the way he always was, and Homer couldn’t tell if Angel had caught the slip. Homer wondered if he should tell Candy that Wally had caught it.

They took Candy’s lemon-yellow Jeep. Candy drove; Wally sat up front, in the comfortable seat, and Homer and Angel shared the back. All the way to the beach, Wally just looked out the window intently, as if he were seeing the road between Heart’s Rock and Heart’s Haven for the first time. As if, thought Homer Wells, Wally had just abandoned the plane—over Burma—and his chute had just opened, and he was searching for a spot to land.

That was the first time that Homer knew for certain that Candy was right.

He knows, Homer thought. Wally knows.

The apple mart never changed. It was also a family. Only Debra Pettigrew was gone; Big Dot Taft’s kid sister had married a man from New Hampshire, and she came back to Heart’s Rock only at Christmas. Every Christmas, Homer Wells took Angel to St. Cloud’s. They had an early Christmas breakfast with Candy and Wally, and a lot of opening presents; then they took a lot more presents to St. Cloud’s. They would arrive late in the day, or in the early evening, and have Christmas dinner with everyone. How Nurse Angela cried! Nurse Edna cried when they left. Dr. Larch was friendly but reserved.

The apple mart was nearly as constant as St. Cloud’s—in some ways, the apple mart was more constant, because the people didn’t change, and at St. Cloud’s the orphans were always changing.

Herb Fowler still went out with Louise Tobey, who was still called Squeeze Louise; she was almost fifty, now; she’d never married Herb (she’d never been asked), yet she had acquired a wife’s matronly charms and postures. Herb Fowler was still a very coarse, very worn-out joke (about the rubbers); he was one of those thin, gray men in his sixties, with an outrageous pot belly (for such a skinny fellow); he carried his paunch like something stolen and badly hidden beneath his shirt. And Meany Hyde was uniformly fat and bald, and as nice as ever; his wife, Florence, and Big Dot Taft still ruled the roost in the apple mart. Only momentarily sobered by Grace Lynch’s death, these two women (with their thigh-sized upper arms) still kept Irene Titcomb giggling (and she still turned the side of her face with the burn scar away). Everett Taft, who was the mellowest foreman, seemed relieved that Homer did the hiring, now, and that the burden of hiring the extra help at harvest had been lifted off him. And Vernon Lynch’s resentment was so monumental that it didn’t confine itself to mere particulars—either to Homer’s being in charge, or to Grace’s death. It was just anger that possessed him—seething and constant and unrestrained by the ravages of Vernon’s sixty-something years.