The Cider House Rules

So he's given me something besides apple trees, the old man mused. So there's still hope for him.

Nurse Angela and Nurse Edna were so relieved to get Nurse Caroline that they weren't even jealous. Here was the new blood that might hold the board of trustees at bay a while longer.

"The new nurse is a definite improvement to the situation," Dr. Gingrich confided to the board. "I would say that she takes a lot of pressure off making any immediate decision." (As if they weren't trying to replace the old man every minute!)

"I'd prefer a young doctor to a young nurse," Mrs. Goodhall declared. "A young doctor and a young administrator. You know how I feel about the records; the records of that place are pure whimsy. But it's at least a temporary improvement; I'll buy that," she said.

If Wilbur Larch could

have heard her, he would have said: "Just give me the time, lady, and you'll buy more than that."

But in 195_, Wilbur Larch was ninety-something. Sometimes his face would hold so still under the ether cone that the mask would stay in place after his hand had dropped to his side; only the force of his exhalations would make the cone fall. He had lost a lot of weight. In a mirror, or traveling with his beloved ether, he had the impression that he was becoming a bird. Only Nurse Caroline had the courage to criticize his drug habit. "You should know, of all people," Nurse Caroline told him roughly.

"Me of all people?" Larch asked innocently. Sometimes, he found it was fun to provoke her.

"You have a low opinion of religion," Nurse Caroline remarked to him.

"I suppose so," he said cautiously. She was a little too young and quick for him, he knew.

"Well, what do you suppose a drug dependency is--if not a kind of religion?" Nurse Caroline asked.

"I have no quarrel with anyone at prayer," Wilbur Larch said. "Prayer is personal--prayer is anyone's choice. Pray to whom or what you want! It's when you start making rules," said Wilbur Larch, but he felt lost. He knew she could talk circles around him. He admired socialism, but talking to a damn socialist was like talking to any true believer. He had heard her say, so many times, that a society that approved of making abortion illegal was a society that approved of violence against women; that making abortion illegal was simply a sanctimonious, self-righteous form of violence against women--it was just a way of legalizing violence against women, Nurse Caroline would say. He had heard her say, so many times, that abortions were not only a personal freedom of choice but also a responsibility of the state--to provide them.

"Once the state starts providing, it feels free to hand out the rules, too!" Larch blurted hastily. It was a Yankee thing to say--very Maine. But Nurse Caroline smiled. That led him into another of her arguments; she could always trap him. He was not a systems man, he was just a good one.

"In a better world . . ." she began patiently. Her patience with him could make Larch furious.

"No, not in a better world!" he cried. "In this one--in this world. I take this world as a given. Talk to me about this world!" But it all made him so tired. It made him want a little ether. The more he tried to keep up with Nurse Caroline, the more he needed ether; and the stronger he felt his need for it, the more that made her right.

"Oh, I can't always be right," Larch said tiredly.

"Yes, I know," Nurse Caroline said sympathetically. "It's because even a good man can't always be right that we need a society, that we need certain rules--call them priorities, if you prefer," she said.

"You can call them whatever you want," said Wilbur Larch testily. "I don't have time for philosophy, or for government, or for religion. I don't have enough time," said Wilbur Larch.

Always, in the background of his mind, there was a newborn baby crying; even when the orphanage was as silent as the few, remaining, abandoned buildings of St. Cloud's--even when it was ghostly quiet--Wilbur Larch heard babies crying. And they were not crying to be born, he knew; they were crying because they were born.

That summer, Mr. Rose wrote that he "and the daughter" might be arriving a day or so ahead of the picking crew; he hoped the cider house would be ready.

"It's been a while since we've seen the daughter," Wally remarked, in the apple-mart office. Everett Taft was outside oiling Wally's wheelchair for him, so Wally sat on the desk--his withered legs swinging limply, his unused feet in a perfectly polished pair of loafers; the loafers were more than fifteen years old.

Candy was playing with the adding machine. "I think the daughter is about Angel's age," she said.

"Right," said Homer Wells, and Wally hit Homer with a very well-thrown jab--the only sort of punch he could really throw, sitting down. Because Homer had been leaning on the desk and Wally had been sitting up straight, the punch caught Homer completely by surprise, and very solidly, in the cheek. The punch surprised Candy so much that she pushed the adding machine off the far corner of the desk. The machine crashed to the office floor; when Homer hit the floor, he did not land quite as loudly or as deadweight as the adding machine, but he landed hard. He put his hand to his cheek, where he would soon have some swelling and the start of a slight shiner.

"Wally!" Candy said.

"I'm so sick of it!" Wally shouted. "It's time you learned a new word, Homer," Wally said.

"Jesus, Wally," Candy said.

"I'm okay," Homer said, but he remained sitting on the office floor.

"I'm sorry," Wally said. "It just gets on my nerves--you saying 'Right' all the time." And although he had not made this particular mistake for years, he lifted himself off the desk with his arms--it must have seemed to him that the appropriate thing to do would be to swing his legs to the floor and help Homer up to his feet; he'd forgotten that he couldn't walk. If Candy had not caught him under the arms, and hugged him--chest to chest--Wally would have fallen. Homer got to his feet and helped Candy put Wally back on the desk.

"I'm sorry, buddy," Wally said. He put his head on Homer's shoulder.

Homer did not say "Right." Candy went to get a piece of ice in a towel for Homer's face, and Homer said, "It's okay, Wally. Everything's okay." Wally slumped a little forward, and Homer leaned over him; their foreheads touched. They maintained that position until Candy returned with the ice.