The Cider House Rules

"The old woman, Grogan--she was alive?" Melony asked.

"I didn't bring the box back, did I?" Lorna asked.

"So you gave it to her?" Melony asked. "And you didn't say nothing?"

"I just asked if she was alive, and one of the nurses said she was, so I gave the carton to one of the nurses--as I was leavin'," Lorna said.

"And the doctor?" Melony asked. "Old Larch--is he alive?"

"Barely," Lorna said.

"I'll be damned," said Melony. "Did it hurt?"

"Not much," Lorna said cautiously.

"Too bad," Melony said. "It shoulda hurt a lot."

In her boardinghouse, where she was now the sole superintendent, she took from a very old electrician's catalogue a yellowed article and photograph from the local newspaper. She went to the antiques shop that was run by her old, dim-witted devotee, Mary Agnes Cork, whose adoptive parents had treated her well; they'd even put her in charge of the family store. Melony asked Mary Agnes for a suitable frame for the newspaper article and the photograph, and Mary Agnes was delighted to come up with something perfect. It was a genuine Victorian frame taken from a ship that had been overhauled in the Bath yards. Mary Agnes sold Melony the frame for much less than it was worth, even though Melony was rich. Electricians are well paid, and Melony had been working full-time for the shipyard for fifteen years; because she was the superintendent of the boardinghouse, she lived almost rent-free. She didn't own a car and she bought all her clothes at Sam's Army-Navy Men's Store.

It was fitting that the frame was teak--the wood of the tree that had held Wally Worthington in the air over Burma for one whole night--because the newspaper article was about Captain Worthington, and the picture--which Melony had recognized, fifteen years ago--was also of Wally. The article was all about the miraculous rescue of the downed (and paralyzed) pilot, who had been awarded the Purple Heart. As far as Melony was concerned, the whole story resembled the plot of a cheap and unlikely adventure movie, but she liked the picture--and the part of the article that said Wally was a local hero, a Worthington from those Worthingtons who for years had owned and managed the Ocean View Orchards in Heart's Rock.

In her bedroom, in her boardinghouse in Bath, Melony hung the antique frame containing the article and photograph over her bed. In the darkness she liked knowing it was there--over her head, like history. She liked that as much as looking at the photograph in the daylight hours. And in the darkness, she would linger over the syllables of that hero's name.

"Worthington," she liked to say aloud. "Ocean View," she said, at other times; she was more familiar with saying this. "Heart's Rock," she would say, quickly spitting the short words out.

In those predawn hours, which are the toughest for insomniacs, Melony would whisper, "Fifteen years." And just before she would fall asleep, she would ask of the first, flat light that crept into her bedroom, "Are you still there, Sunshine?" What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us are wrapped up in parentheses.

For fifteen years, Homer Wells had taken responsibility for the writing and the posting of the cider house rules. Every year, it was the last thing he attached to the wall after the fresh coat of paint had dried. Some years he tried being jolly with the rules; other years he tried sounding nonchalant; perhaps it had been Olive's tone and not the rules themselves that had caused some offense, and thereby made it a matter of pride with the migrants that the rules should never be obeyed.

The rules themselves did not change much. The rotary screen had to be cleaned out. A word of warning about the drinking and the falling asleep in the cold-storage room was mandatory. And long after the Ferris wheel at Cape Kenneth was torn down and there were so many lights on the coast that the view from the cider house roof resembled a glimpse of some distant city, the migrants still sat on the roof and drank too much and fell off, and Homer Wells would ask (or tell) them not to. Rules, he guessed, never asked; rules told.

But he tried to make the cider house rules seem friendly. He phrased the rules in a confiding voice. "There have been some accidents on the roof, over the years--especially at night, and especially in combination with having a great deal to drink while sitting on the roof. We recommend that you do your drinking with both feet on the ground," Homer would write.

But every year, the piece of paper itself would become worn and tattered and used for other things--a kind of desperation grocery list, for example, always by someone who couldn't spell.

CORN MEEL

REGULAR FLOWER

was written across Homer's rules one year.

At times, the solitary sheet of paper gathered little insults and mockeries of a semi-literate nature.

"No fucking on the roof!" or "Beat-off only in cold storage!"

Wally told Homer that only Mr. Rose knew how to write; that the pranks, and insults, and shopping lists were all composed by Mr. Rose, but Homer could never be sure.

Every summer Mr. Rose would write to Wally and Wally would tell Mr. Rose how many pickers he needed--and Mr. Rose would say how many he was bringing and the day they would arrive (give or take). No contract ever existed--just the short, reliable assurances from Mr. Rose.

Some summers he came with a woman--large and soft and quiet, with a baby girl riding her hip. By the time the little girl could run around and get into trouble (she was about the age of Angel Wells), Mr. Rose stopped bringing her or the woman.

For fifteen years the only migrant who was as constant as Mr. Rose was Black Pan, the cook.

"How's your little girl?" Homer Wells would ask Mr. Rose--every year that the woman and the daughter didn't show up again.

"She growin', like your boy," Mr. Rose would say.

"And how's your lady?" Homer would ask.