The Cider House Rules

"We have to do the right thing," Homer Wells said. Wally would want to do the right thing, and Dr. Larch was doing what he thought was the right thing, too. If you could be patient enough to wait and see, the right thing must present itself--mustn't it? What else does an orphan do, anyway, but wait and see?

"I can be patient," said Homer Wells.

Melony could be patient, too. And Ray Kendall, at his window above his dock--he could be patient, too. A mechanic is also patient; a mechanic has to wait for something to break before he can fix it. Ray stared at the distance between his daughter's feet and the feet of Homer Wells; it was not much of a distance, and he had observed his daughter on his dock many times in Wally's arms, and, before that, when Candy and Wally had also sat on that dock with their feet not touching.

They were three good kids, Ray was thinking. But he was a mechanic; he knew better than to interfere. When it breaks, then he would fix it; he felt sorry for them all.

"I can drive you back to school tomorrow," Homer said.

"My dad can drive me back," Candy said. "I think he likes to."

Olive Worthington looked at the clock on her night table and turned out her reading lamp; Homer never stayed out this late with Debra Pettigrew, she was thinking. Olive had no trouble imagining Candy's attraction to Homer Wells; Olive had the greatest respect for Homer's diligence. She had seen him be a better student--and of the rabbit, of all things!--than Wally had ever been, and she knew he was a reliable and friendly companion, too. Olive fumed to herself. She felt that typical contradiction a parent so often feels: completely on her son's side--she even wanted to warn him, to help his cause--but at the same time Wally could stand to be taught a lesson. Just maybe not this lesson, Olive thought.

"Well, thank goodness, they are three nice people!" she said aloud, her own voice in the empty house surprising her and thoroughly waking her up. Some hot chocolate would be soothing, she thought; and when Homer comes home, he can have some with me.

But in the kitchen Olive was struck by how the fog, shot through with a cloudy moonlight, made the raft in the swimming pool look quite ghostly. The raft was poised at the side of the pool, half in the water and half out, like a very gray and shadowy photograph of itself. The image disturbed her, and Olive decided she'd had enough of that raft. She put on a pair of boots and a long winter coat over her nightgown. It bothered her that the outdoor patio light was not working; only the underwater lights would turn on, and she was surprised to see that the water in the pool had finally frozen. That was the reason for the raft's arrested position. It was trapped as rigidly as a statue, like a ship seized in an ice floe. Being careful to hold tight to the pool curb, she kicked tentatively at the ice with the heel of her boot, but when she tugged the raft, it would not come free. If I walk out there, I'll fall right through, she thought.

That was when Homer came home. She heard the van in the driveway and she called to him.

"What do you want done with it?" Homer asked Olive about the raft.

"Just get it out," Olive said to him.

"And then what?" he asked.

"Throw it away," she said. "Meanwhile, I'll make you some hot chocolate."

Homer struggled with the raft. The ice, which would not support all his weight, was hard enough to have a firm grip on the raft. Very cleverly, he eased himself onto the raft, hoping it still had enough air in it so that it wouldn't sink once he broke the bond with the ice. He rocked back and forth on his knees on the raft until he could feel the ice breaking. Then he rocked his way through more of the ice and climbed up on the pool curb and pulled the raft out of the pool after him. Ice still clung to it; it was so heavy, he had to drag it. When he got to the trash barrels, he needed to deflate the raft in order to stuff it in a barrel. The nozzle was rusted shut, and even by jumping with both feet, he couldn't break the tough canvas hide.

He went into the garden shed and found a pair of hedge shears; with the thinner blade, he stabbed a gash in the raft and snipped upward--the stale, rubbery air blasting into his face. It was moist and fetid, and when he tore the hole wider, the smell washed over him--strangely warm in the cold night air, and strangely foul. It was not only the smell of someone's old sneakers left out in the rain; there was also something putrid about it and he couldn't help viewing the slashed object as he might have viewed a ripped intestine. He stuffed the raft into a trash barrel, but when he went into the house for his hot-chocolate reward, the smell remained on his hands even after he had washed them. He stuck his nose into the hollow in the palm of his hand; the smell was still there. Then he recognized the smell: it was what was left on his hands after he removed the rubber gloves.

"How's Candy?" Olive asked.

"Fine," said Homer Wells.

They sipped their hot chocolate--like mother and son, both of them were thinking; and, at the same time, not like mother and son, they both thought.

"And how are you?" Olive asked him, after a while.

"Just fine," said Homer Wells, but what he thought was: I'm going to wait and see.

Wilbur Larch, inhaling and seeing the stars race across the ceiling of the dispensary, knew what a luxury it was: to be able to wait and see. Even if I last, he thought, I might get caught; an abortionist believes in odds. He had been in the business too long. What are the odds that someone will blow the whistle before I'm through? the old man wondered.

Only yesterday he had made a new enemy--a woman in her eighth month who said it was only her fourth. He had to refuse her. When the women were hysterical, he usually could wait them out; if they required firmness, he gave them Nurse Angela; Nurse Edna was better at handholding. In time, they calmed down. If, in his opinion, a woman was simply too late--if he felt he had to refuse to perform the abortion--he usually could convince the woman she would be safe at St. Cloud's; that he would deliver the baby and find it a home, and that this was preferable to the risk involved in a late abortion.

But not this woman. There had been no hysterics. The peacefulness of a long-standing hatred made the woman almost serene.

"So that's it--you won't do it," she said.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Larch said.

"How much do you want?" the woman asked him. "I can get it."

"Whatever you can afford to donate to the orphanage would be appreciated," Larch said. "If you can't afford anything, then everything is free. An abortion is free, delivery is free. A donation is appreciated. If you have nowhere to go, you're welcome to stay here. You don't have long to wait."

"Just tell me what I have to do," the woman said. "Do I fuck you? Okay, I'll fuck you."

"I want you to have this baby and let me find it a home," Wilbur Larch said. "That's all I want you to do."