No, don't take any, thought Homer Wells. That's probably how she got that way. Homer was staring at Florence Hyde. It was riveting to him to see someone enjoying her pregnancy.

'Honestly, Homer,' said Big Dot Taft, 'ain't you ever seen anyone about to have a baby before?'

'Yes,' said Homer Wells, who looked away. Grace Lynch was staring at him, and he looked away from her, too.

'If I was your age,' Vernon Lynch told Homer, when they were pruning in an orchard called Cock Hill, 'I'd enlist. I'd do what Wally's doing.'

I can't.,' said Homer Wells.

'They don't take orphans?' Vernon asked.

'No,' Homer said. I have a heart defect. Something was born with.' {454}

Vernon Lynch was not a gossip, but that was all that Homer needed to say – the workers at Ocean View not only forgave Homer for not enlisting, they even began to take care of him. They treated him the way Dr. Larch would have liked to see him treated.

'You know, I didn't mean anything,' Herb Fowler told Homer. 'About the manufacturer's defect. I wouldn't have said that if I'd known about your heart.'

'That's okay,' Homer said.

And in the early spring, when it was time to mend the boxes for the beehives, Ira Titcomb rushed to assist Homer, who was struggling with a particularly heavy pallet.

'Don't strain yourself, Jesus!' Ira said.

'I can manage, Ira. I'm stronger than you are,' Homer said, not understanding-at first-Ira's concern.

'I heard your heart's not as strong as the rest of you,' Ira said.

On Mother's Day, Vernon Lynch taught him how to operate the sprayers by himself. He insisted on giving Homer another lecture on the use of the respirator. 'You of all people,' Vernon told him, 'better keep this thing on, and keep it clean.'

'Me of all people,' said Homer Wells.

Even Debra Pettigrew forgave him for his seemingly undefined friendship with Candy. As the weather warmed up, they went parking again, and one night they managed some lingering kisses in the Pettigrews' unoccupied summer house on Drinkwater Lake; the shut-up, cold smell of the house reminded Homer of his first days in the cider house. When his kisses seemed to calm, Debra grew restless; when his kisses seemed too passionate, Debra said, 'Careful! Don't get too excited.' He was a young man with unusual kindness, or else he might have suggested to Debra that nothing she allowed him to do would ever endanger his heart.

It was spring. Wally was sent to Kelly Field-San Antonio, Texas-for Air Corps cadet training (Squadron 2, Flight C), and Melony thought that the time was right for her to hit the road again. {455}

'You're crazy,' Lorna told her. 'The more of a war there is, the more good jobs there are for us. The country needs to build stuff-it don't need to eat more apples.'

So will I see you next winter?' Lorna asked her friend.

'If I don't find Ocean View or Homer Wells,' Melony said.

'So I'll see you next winter, ' Lorna said. 'You're lettin' a man make an asshole out of you.'

That's just what I'm not lettin' him do,' Melony said.

Mrs. Grogan's coat had seen better days, but the bundle of belongings contained within the grasp of Charley's belt had grown substantially. Melony had made money in the shipyards, and she'd treated herself to a few sturdy articles of a workingman's clothing, including a good pair of boots. Lorna gave her a present as she was leaving.

'I used to knit,' Lorna explained. It was a child's woolen mitten – just the left-hand mitten – and too small for Melony, but the colors were very pretty. 'It was gonna be for a baby I never had, 'cause I didn't stay married long enough. I never got the right hand finished.' Melony stared at the mitten, which she held in her hand – the mitten was very heavy; it was full of ball bearings that Lorna had swiped from the shipyards. 'It's a super weapon,' Lorria explained, 'in case you meet anyone who's a bigger asshole than you are!'

The gift brought tears to Melony's eyes, and the women hugged each other good-bye. Melony left EJath without saying good-bye to young Mary Agnes Cork, who would have done anything to please her, who asked all her school friends – and everyone who appeared at Ted and Patty Callahan's to browse the antiques – if any of them had ever heard of an apple orchard called Ocean View. If this knowledge might make Melony her friend, {456} Mary Agnes Cork would never stop inquiring. After Melony left Bath, Lorna realized how much she missed her friend; Lorna discovered that she was asking about Ocean View all the time-as if this inquiry was as necessary and loyal a part of her friendship with Melony as the gift of that woolen weapon.

This meant that now there were three of them, all looking for Homer Wells.

That summer they moved Wally from San Antonio to Coleman, Texas. 'I wish someone would declare war on Texas,' he wrote Homer. That might be some justification for being here.' He claimed he was flying in his undershorts and socks-that was all any of them could stand to wear in such unrelenting heat.

'Where does he think he's going?' Candy complained to Homer. 'Does he expect a perfect climate? He's going to a if or!' Homer sat opposite her on Ray Kendall's dock, the snail population forever influenced by their conversation.

In the cool cement-floor classroom at Cape Kenneth High, Homer would unroll the map of the world; there would rarely be anyone present besides the janitor, who was no better informed about geography than Homer Wells. Homer used the summer solitude to study the places of the world where he thought it would be likely that Wally would go.

Once Mr. Hood surprised him in his studies. Perhaps Mr. Hood was visiting his old classroom out of nostalgia, or perhaps it was time to place an order for the next year's rabbits.

'I suppose you'll be enlisting,' Mr. Hood said to Homer.

'No, sir,' Homer said. 'I've got a bad heart-pulmonary valve stenosis.'

Mr. Hood stared at Homer's chest; Homer knew that the man had eyes for rabbits only-and not very sharp eyes, at that. 'You had a heart murmur, from birth?' Mr. Hood asked. {457}

'Yes, sir,' Homer said.

'And do you still have a murmur?' Mr. Hood asked.

'Not much of one, not anymore,' Homer said.

'That's not such a bad heart, then,' Mr. Hood said encouragingly.

But why would Homer Wells feel that Mr. Hood was an authority? He couldn't keep his uteri straight; he didn't know rabbits from sheep.

Even the migrants were different that harvest-they were both older and younger; the men in their prime had enlisted, except for Mr. Rose.

'Slim pickin's for pickers this year,' he told Olive. 'There's too many fools think the war's more interestin' than pickin' apples.'

'Yes, I know,' Olive said. 'You don't have to tell me about it.'

That harvest there was a woman Mr. Rose called Mama, although she wasn't old enough to be any of their mothers. Her allegiance seemed quite exclusively assigned to Mr. Rose; Homer knew this because the woman did what she wanted to do-she picked a little, when she felt like it or when Mr. Rose suggested it; she cooked a little, but she was not the cook every night, and she was not everyone's cook. Some nights she even sat on the roof, but only when Mr. Rose sat there with her. She was a tall, heavy young woman with a deliberate slowness that made her movements seem copied from Mr. Rose, and she wore a nearly constant smile that was not quite relaxed and not quite smirking-also copied from Mr. Rose.

It surprised Homer that no special sleeping arrangements w ere made regarding the woman; she had her own bed, next to Mr. Rose, but no attempt was made to curtain-off their beds or otherwise construct a little privacy. There was only this: every once in a while, when Homer would drive by the cider house, he would note that everyone except Mr. Rose and his woman was either standing outside the house or sitting on the roof. That {458} must have been their time together, and Mr. Rose must have orchestrated those meetings as deliberately as he appeared to direct everything else.