“He felt the pregnant woman squeeze his hand so hard that it hurt. The word ‘Mother!’ was strangely on his lips when Nurse Angela finally got the door open and seized Homer Wells in her arms.‘Oh, oh!’ she cried. ‘Oh Homer – my Homer, our Homer! I knew you’d be back!’And because the pregnant woman’s hand still firmly held Homer’s hand – neither one of them felt able to let go – Nurse Angela turned and included the woman in her embrace. It seemed to Nurse Angela that this pregnant woman was just another orphan who belonged (like Homer Wells) exactly where she was.”

“Homer and Candy passed by the empty and brightly lit dispensary; they peeked into Nurse Angela’s empty office. Homer knew better than to peek into the delivery room when the light was on. From the dormitory, they could hear Dr. Larch’s reading voice. Although Candy held tightly to his hand, Homer was inclined to hurry – in order not to miss the bedtime story.”

“When Homer Wells saw the stationmaster’s brain stem exposed, he felt that Dr. Larch was busy enough – with both hands – for it to be safe to say what Homer wanted to say.‘I love you,’ said Homer Wells. He knew he had to leave the room, then – while he could still see the door – and so he started to leave.‘I love you too, Homer,’ said Wilbur Larch, who for another minute or more could not have seen a blood clot in the brain stem if there had been one to see. He heard Homer say ‘Right’ before he heard the door close.In a while, he could make out the brain stem clearly, there was no clot.‘Arrhythmia,’ Wilbur Larch repeated to himself. Then he added, ‘Right,’ as if he were now speaking for Homer Wells. Dr. Larch put his instruments aside; he gripped the operating table for a long time.”

“David Copperfield had a fever when he’d gone to bed, and Larch went to check on the boy. Dr. Larch was relieved to feel that young Copperfield’s fever had broken; the boy’s forehead was cool, and a slight sweat chilled the boy’s neck, which Larch carefully rubbed dry with a towel. There was not much moonlight; therefore, Larch felt unobserved. He bent over Copperfield and kissed him, much in the manner that he remembered kissing Homer Wells. Larch moved on to the next bed and kissed Smokey Fields, who tasted vaguely like hot dogs; yet the experience was soothing to Larch. How he wished he had kissed Homer more, when he’d had the chance! He went from bed to bed, kissing the boys; it occurred to him, he didn’t know all their names, but he kissed them anyway. He kissed all of them.When he left the room, Smokey Fields asked the darkness, ‘What was that all about?’ But no one else was awake, or else no one wanted to answer him.I wish he would kiss me like that, thought Nurse Edna, who had a very alert ear for unusual goings-on.‘I think it’s nice,’ Mrs. Grogan said to Nurse Angela, when Nurse Angela told her about it.‘I think it’s senile,’ Nurse Angela said. But Homer Wells, at Wally’s window, did not know that Dr. Larch’s kisses were out in the world, in search of him.He didn’t know, either – he could never have imagined it! – that Candy was also awake, and also worried. If he does stay, if he doesn’t go back to St. Cloud’s, she was thinking, what will I do? The sea tugged all around her. Both the darkness and the moon were failing.”

“Again, Homer felt the nudge in his ribs, and Mr. Rose said, mildly, ‘You all so uneducated – Homer’s havin’ a little fun with you.’When the bottle of rum passed from man to man, Mr. Rose just passed it along.‘Don’t the name Homer mean nothin’ to you?’ Mr. Rose asked the men.‘I think I heard of it,’ the cook Black Pan said.‘Homer was the world’s first storyteller!’ Mr. Rose announced. The nudge at Homer’s ribs was back, and Mr. Rose said, ‘Our Homer knows a good story, too.”

“It was Nurse Caroline who introduced Homer to young Dr. Harlow, who was in the throes of growing out his bangs; a cowlick persisted in making his forehead look meager; a floppy shelf of straw-colored hair gave Dr. Harlow’s eyes the constant anxiousness of someone peering from under the brim of a hat.‘Oh yes, Wells – our ether expert,’ Dr. Harlow said snidely.‘I grew up in an orphanage,’ said Homer Wells. ‘I did a lot of helping out around the hospital.’‘But surely you never administered any ether?’ said Dr. Harlow.‘Surely not,’ lied Homer Wells. As Dr. Larch had discovered with the board of trustees, it was especially gratifying to lie to unlikable people.”