The Cider House Rules

He's the only hero here, Melony thought, watching the door swing closed behind the wheelchair; she could not control her hands. She wanted to touch Angel, to hug him--she'd wanted to get her hands on Homer Wells for years, but now she didn't know what she wanted to do to him. If she'd suddenly dropped to all fours, or had crouched into a stance more suitable for a fight, she knew that Homer Wells would be prepared; she noticed he had no control of his hands, either--his fingers were playing pitty-pat against his thighs. Hardest for Melony was to recognize that there was no love for her in his eyes; he looked like a trapped animal--there was no enthusiasm or curiosity about seeing her in any part of him. She thought that if she'd opened her mouth, beginning with the boy--how he was clearly no orphan!--Homer Wells would be at her throat before she could spit out the story.

No one seemed to remember that Melony had come--among other reasons--for a job. Angel said, "Would you like to see the pool first?"

"Well, I don't swim," Melony said, "but it would be nice to see it." She smiled at Homer with such an uncharacteristic warmth--which revealed everything about her bad teeth--that Homer shivered. The apple, from which only one, uncomfortable bite had been taken, hung like a lead weight at the end of Candy's limp arm.

"I'll show you the house," Candy said. "After Angel's shown you the pool." She dropped the uneaten apple, then laughed at herself.

"I'll show you the orchards," Homer mumbled.

"You don't have to show me no orchards, Sunshine," Melony said. "I seen lots of orchards, before."

"Oh," he said.

"Sunshine," Candy said blankly.

Angel poked his father in the back as they were walking toward the house and pool; Angel still thought that this surprise was great and unexpected fun. Homer turned briefly and frowned at his son, which Angel found all the more amusing. While the boy was showing Melony the swimming pool--and making special note of the ramp for Wally's wheelchair--Candy and Homer awaited her arrival in the kitchen.

"She knows," Homer said to Candy.

"What?" Candy said. "What does she know?"

"Melony knows everything," said Homer Wells, in a trance of almost ether intensity.

"How could she?" Candy asked him. "Did you tell her?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Homer said. "She just knows--she always knows."

"Don't you be ridiculous," Candy said crossly.

"Wally's a great swimmer," Angel explained to Melony. "In the ocean, he just needs to get carried out past the breakers. I can carry him."

"You're a good-lookin' guy," Melony said to Angel. "You're better-lookin' than your dad ever was."

Angel was embarrassed; he took the temperature of the pool. "It's warm," he said. "Too bad you don't swim. You could stay in the shallow end, or I could teach you how to float. Candy taught my dad how to swim."

"Incredible," Melony said. She walked out on the diving board and jounced a little; she needed to jounce very little to make the board dip close to the water. "If I fell in, I'll bet you could save me," she said to Angel, who couldn't tell if the big woman was being flirtatious or threatening--or if she was idly fooling around. That was what was exciting about her, Angel thought: she gave him the impression that--from one minute to the next--she might do anything.

"I could probably save you, if you were drowning," Angel offered cautiously. But Melony retreated from the end of the diving board, which lent to her step the sense of springing power that one detects in the larger members of the cat family.

"Incredible," she repeated, her eyes trying to take in everything.

"Want to see the house now?" Angel asked her. She was making him nervous.

"Gee, it's some place you got," Melony told Candy, who showed her the downstairs; Homer showed her the upstairs. In the hallway between Homer's and Angel's rooms, Melony whispered to him, "Boy, you really done all right for yourself. How'd you manage it, Sunshine?" How she feasted on him with her tawny eyes! "You even got a great view!" she pointed out, sitting on the master bed and looking out the window.

When she asked if she could use the bathroom, Homer went downstairs to have a word with Candy, but Angel was still hanging around--still very much enjoying himself, and still curious. The impact that the thuglike nature of his father's first girlfriend had made on the boy was considerable; if Angel had been troubled in trying to imagine why his father chose such a solitary life, the violent apparition that had presented herself today had done much to reassure him. If this menacing woman had been his father's first experience, it was more understandable (to Angel) why Homer had been reluctant to repeat the relationship.

Melony seemed to spend a long time in the bathroom, and Homer Wells was grateful for the time; he needed it--to convince Candy and Angel to go back to work, to leave him alone with Melony. "She wants a job," he told them forcefully. "I need to have a little time with her, alone."

"A job," Candy said--a new horror coming into her face; the thought of it made her squint her pretty eyes.

Mirrors had never been Melony's friends, but the mirror in Homer's bathroom was especially harsh to her. She went through the medicine cabinet quickly; for no reason, she dumped some of the pills down the toilet. She began ejecting razor blades from a crude, metal dispenser; she emptied the dispenser before she could make herself stop. She cut her finger trying to pick up one of the blades from the floor. She had her finger stuck in her mouth when she first looked at herself in the mirror. She held the razor blade in her other hand while she reviewed the forty-something years she saw in her face. Oh, she had never been attractive, she had never been nice, but once she had been an efficient weapon, she thought; now she wasn't so sure. She held the razor blade against the pouch under one eye; she shut that eye, as if the eye itself couldn't watch what she was going to do. Then she did nothing. After a while, she put the blade down on the edge of the sink and cried.

Later, she found a cigarette lighter; Candy must have left it in the bathroom; Homer didn't smoke; Wally couldn't climb stairs. She used the lighter to melt the handle of Homer's toothbrush; she sunk the razor blade in the softest part and waited for the handle to harden. When she clutched the brush end in her hand, she had quite a nice little weapon, she thought.

Then she saw the fifteen-year-old questionnaire from the St. Cloud's board of trustees; the paper was so old, she had to be careful not to tear it. How those questions spun her mind around! She threw the toothbrush with the razor blade in the sink, then she picked it up again, then she put it in the medicine cabinet, then she took it out. She was sick once and flushed the toilet twice.

Melony stayed upstairs in the bathroom a long time. When she came downstairs, she found Homer waiting for her in the kitchen; she'd had enough time alone for her disposition to change and rechange--for her to grasp hold of her real feelings about finding Homer in these surroundings, and in what she presumed was a sleazy situation. She might h