The Cider House Rules

Candy, who managed the money at Ocean View, claimed that whatever costs they absorbed in repairs to the cider house roof were more than compensated for by Mr. Rose's reliability.

"There's something a little gangland style about the guy," Wally said--not exactly complaining. "I mean, I don't really want to know how he gets all those pickers to behave themselves."

"But they do behave themselves," Homer said.

"He does a good job," Candy said. "Let him have his own rules."

Homer Wells looked away; he knew that rules, for Candy, were all private contracts.

Fifteen years ago, they had made their own rules--or, really, Candy had made them (before Wally came home). They stood in the cider house (after Angel was born, on a night when Olive was looking after Angel). They had just made love, but not happily; something was wrong. It would be wrong for fifteen years, but that night Candy had said, "Let's agree to something."

"Okay," Homer said.

"Whatever happens, we share Angel."

"Of course," Homer said.

"I mean, you get to be his father--you get all the father time you want to have--and I get to have all the mother time I need," Candy said.

"Always," said Homer Wells, but something was wrong.

"I mean, regardless of what happens--whether I'm with you, or with Wally," Candy said.

Homer was quiet for a while. "So you're leaning toward Wally?" he asked.

"I'm not leaning anywhere," Candy said. "I'm standing right here, and we're agreeing to certain rules."

"I didn't know they were rules," said Homer Wells.

"We share Angel," Candy said. "We both get to live with him. We get to be his family. Nobody ever moves out."

"Even if you're with Wally?" Homer said, after a while.

"Remember what you told me when you wanted me to have Angel?" Candy asked him.

Homer Wells was cautious, now. "Remind me," he said.

"You said that he was your baby, too--that he was ours. That I couldn't decide, all by myself, not to have him--that was the point," Candy said.

"Yes," Homer said. "I remember."

"Well, if he was ours then, he's ours now--whatever happens," Candy repeated.

"In the same house?" asked Homer Wells. "Even if you go with Wally?"

"Like a family," Candy said.

"Like a family," said Homer Wells. It was a word that took a strong grip of him. An orphan is a child, forever; an orphan detests change; an orphan hates to move; an orphan loves routine.

For fifteen years, Homer Wells knew that there were possibly as many cider house rules as there were people who had passed through the cider house. Even so, every year, he posted a fresh list.

For fifteen years, the board of trustees had tried and failed to replace Dr. Larch; they couldn't find anyone who wanted the job. There were people dying to throw themselves into unrewarded service of their fellow man, but there were more exotic places than St. Cloud's where their services were needed--and where they could also suffer. The board of trustees couldn't manage to entice a new nurse into service there, either; they couldn't hire even an administrative assistant.

When Dr. Gingrich retired--not from the board; he would never retire from the board--he mused about accepting the position in St. Cloud's, but Mrs. Goodhall pointed out to him that he wasn't an obstetrician. His psychiatric practice had never flourished in Maine, yet Dr. Gingrich was surprised and a little hurt to learn that Mrs. Goodhall enjoyed pointing this out to him. Mrs. Goodhall had reached retirement age herself, but nothing could have been farther from that woman's zealous mind. Wilbur Larch was ninety-something, and Mrs. Goodhall was obsessed with retiring him before he died; she realized that to have Larch die, while still in service, would register as a kind of defeat for her.

Not long ago--perhaps in an effort to invigorate the board--Dr. Gingrich had proposed they hold a meeting in an off-season hotel in Ogunquit, simply to break the routine of meeting in their usual offices in Portland. "Make it a kind of outing," he proposed. "The ocean air and all."

But it rained. In the colder weather, the wood shrank; the sand got in the windows and doors and crunched underfoot; the drapes and the towels and the bedsheets were gritty. The wind was off the ocean; no one could sit on the veranda because the wind blew the rain under the roof. The hotel provided them with a long, dark, empty dining room; they held their meeting under a chandelier that no one could turn on--no one could find the right switch.