'You want to be of use?' the woman asked him, crying gently now.

'Yes. Be of use,' he said.

'Sleep right here,' the woman told him. He pretended to sleep with his face against the noisy boulder, w here she held him snug. He knew when her water had broken before she knew it-she had fallen that soundly asleep. He went and found Nurse Edna without waking the woman, who before dawn delivered a seven-pound baby girl. Since neither Nurse Edna nor Nurse Angela was in charge of naming the girl orphans, after a few days someone there gave her a name-probably Mrs. Grogan, who favoured Irish names, or if Mrs. Grogan had momentarily exhausted her supply, the secretary who typed badly and was responsible for 'Melony' instead of 'Melody'; she also enjoyed naming the little girls,

Homer Wells never knew which one she was, but he kept looking for her, as if his nighttime vigil with his face upon the mother's jumping belly might have given him the senses necessary to recognize her child.

He never would recognize her, of course. All he had to go on was the fluid sound of her, and how she'd moved {110} under his ear, in the dark. But he kept looking; he watched the girls in the girls' division as if he expected her to do something that would give her away.

He even admitted his private game to Melony once, but Melony was, typically, derisive. 'Just what do you think the kid's going to do so you'll know which one she is?' Melony asked. 'Is she going to gurgle, is she going to fart-or kick you in the ear?'

But Homer Wells knew he was just playing a game by himself, with himself; orphans are notorious for interior games. For example, one of the oldest games that orphans play is imagining that their parents want them back-that their parents are looking for them. But Homer had spent an evening with the mystery baby's mother; he'd heard all about the mystery baby's father-and his lack of interest in the matter. Homer knew that the mystery baby's parents weren 't looking for her; that may have been why he decided he'd look for her. If that baby girl was growing up, and if she was playing the old orphans' game, wouldn't it be better if there was at least someone who was looking for her-even if it was just another orphan?

Dr. Larch tried to talk to Homer about Melony's anger.

'Anger is a funny thing,'Dr. Larch began, believing that anger was an unfunny thing.

'I mean, I agree, the passage about the “gleams of sunshine”-okay, it's sappy,' Homer said. 'It's one of those things-it makes you wince when you read it, but it's just what Jane would say, it's just like her, so what can you do?' Homer asked. 'But Melony was violent about it.'

Dr. Larch knew that Melony was one of the few orphans still at St. Cloud's who was not born at St. Cloud's. She'd been left at the hospital entrance one early morning when she'd been four or five; she was always; so big for her age, it had been hard to tell how old she was. She hadn't talked until she was eight or nine. At first, Larch thought she might be retarded, but that wasn't the problem. {111}

'Melony was always angry,' Dr. Larch tried to explain. 'We don't know about her origins, or her early years, and she may not know herself what all the sources of her anger are.' Larch was deliberating-whether or not he should tell Homer Wells that Melony had been adopted and had been returned more times than Homer. 'Melony had several unfortunate experiences in foster homes,' Dr. Larch said cautiously. 'If you have the opportunity to ask her about her experiences-and if she wants to talk about them-it might provide her with a welcome release for some of her anger.'

'Ask her about her experiences,' said Homer Wells, shaking his head. 'I don't know,' he said. 'I never tried to talk to her.'

Dr. Larch already regretted his suggestion. Perhaps Melony would remember her first foster family and tell Homer about them; they had sent her back because she allegedly bit the family dog in an altercation concerning a ball. It wasn't just the one fracas that upset the family; they claimed that Melony repeatedly bit the dog. For weeks after the incident, she would creep up on the animal and surprise it when it was eating, or when it was asleep. The family accused Melony of driving the dog crazy.

Melony had run away from the second and third families, alleging that the men in the families, either fathers or brothers, had taken a sexual interest in her. The fourth family claimed that Melony had taken a sexual interest in a younger, female child. In the case of number five: the husband and wife eventually separated because of Melony's relationship with the husband- the wife claimed that her husband had seduced Melony, the husband claimed that Melony had seduced (he said 'attacked') him. Melony was not ambiguous about the matter. 'No one seduces me!' she told Mrs. Grogan proudly. In the case of number six: the husband had died of a heart attack shortly after Melony's arrival and the wife had sent the girl back to St. Cloud's because she {112} felt unequipped for the task of raising Melony alone. (Melony's only remark to Mrs. Grogan had been: 'You bet she's unequipped!')

All this, suddenly, Dr. Larch imagined Homer hearing firsthand from Melony; the vision disturbed him. He feared that he had made Homer Wells his apprentice- an attendant to the gritty operation of St. Cloud's- while at the same time he could not resist screening the boy from some of the harder truths.

It was so like Nurse Angela, of course, to call Homer Wells 'angelic,' and so like Nurse Edna to speak of the boy's 'perfection' and of his 'innocence,' but Dr. Larch worried about Homer's contact with the damaged women who sought the services of St. Cloud's-those departing mothers in whose characters and histories the boy must be seeking some definition of his own mother. And the troubled women who were scraped clean and went away leaving no one behind (just the products of conception)-what impression did they make on the boy?

Homer Wells had a good, open face; it was not a face that could hide things-every feeling and thought was visible upon it, the way a lake in the open reflects every weather. He had a good hand for holding and eyes you could confess to; Dr. Larch was worried about the specific details of the life stories Homer would be exposed to-not simply the sordidness but also the abundant rationalizations he would hear.

And now Melony, the undisputed heavyweight of the girls' division, had disturbed the boy with her anger -with what Dr. Larch suspected was only the tip of the iceberg of her power; her potential for educating Homer Wells seemed to be both terrible and vast.

Melony began her contribution to Homer's education the very next evening when he read to the girls' division. Homer had arrived early (hoping to leave early), but he found the girls' dormitory quarters in disarray. Many of the girls were out of their beds-some of them shrieking {113} when they saw him; their legs were bare. Homer was embarrassed; he stood under the hanging bulb in the communal bedroom, searching the room without success for Mrs. Grogan, who was always nice to him, and clutching his copy of Jane Eyre in both hands-as if the wild girls were likely to tear it away from him.

He did notice that Melony was already in her usual position, in her expected, brief attire. He met her eyes, which were piercing but withholding opinion; then he looked down, or away, or at his hands holding Jane Eyre.

'Hey, you,' he heard Melony say to him-and he heard a subsequent hush fall among the other girls. 'Hey, you,' Melony repeated. When he looked up at her, she was kneeling on her bed and shoving toward him the biggest bare ass he'd ever seen. A blue shadow (pierhaps a bruise) discolored one of Melony's straining thighs; between the bulging, flexed cheeks of her intimidating buttocks, a single dark eye stared at Homer Wells. 'Hey, Sunshine, Melony said to Homer, who blushed the color of the sun at sunrise or sunset. 'Hey, Sunshine,' Melony crooned sweetly to him-thus giving to the orphan Homer Wells her own name for him: Sunshine.