The Cider House Rules

"Take you, Curly?" Dr. Larch asked. "What nice couple?"

"You know," said Curly, who believed that Dr. Larch knew everything. "The beautiful woman? The white car?"

The poor child is having visions, thought Wilbur Larch, who picked Curly up in his arms and sat him down on the edge of the sink where he could observe the boy more closely.

"Or are they here to adopt someone else?" Curly asked miserably. "I think the woman likes Copperfield--but he can't even talk!"

"No one's adopting anyone today, Curly," Dr. Larch said. "I don't have any appointments today."

"Maybe they've just come to look," Curly suggested. "They're just gonna take the best of us."

"It doesn't work like that, Curly," Dr. Larch said, alarmed. Does the child think I run a pet shop? Larch wondered. Does he think I let people come here and browse?

"I don't know how anything works," Curly said, and he started to cry again.

Wilbur Larch, with his fresh memory of how old he looked to himself in the mirror, thought for a moment that his job was too much for him; he felt himself slipping, he felt himself wishing that someone would adopt him--would just take him away. He held Curly Day's wet face against his chest; he shut his eyes and saw those spots he saw most regularly when he inhaled the ether, only those spots quite harshly reminded him of the spotting he was familiar with from his many viewings of the sterile vulval pads.

He looked at Curly Day and wondered if Curly ever would be adopted, or if Curly was in danger of becoming another Homer Wells.

Nurse Angela paused by the door to the boys' shower room; she listened to Dr. Larch comforting Curly Day. She was more worried about Dr. Larch than she was worried about Curly; a kind of stubborn goading had developed between Dr. Larch and Homer Wells that Nurse Angela had never expected to see existing between two people who so clearly loved and needed each other. It distressed her that she was powerless to intervene. She heard Nurse Edna calling her and was grateful for the interruption; she decided it would be easier to talk to Homer than to Dr. Larch; she'd not decided what should be said to either of them.

Homer watched the second abortion patient emerge from the ether; he moved her from the operating table to a portable bed; he put up the safety rails on the bed in case the woman was groggy. He looked in another room and saw that the first abortion patient was already sitting up, but he decided both women would rather be alone for a moment, and so he left the second patient in the operating room. It wasn't time to deliver the Damariscotta woman, anyway, he was sure. The tiny hospital felt especially cramped and overcrowded to him, and he longed for a room of his own. But first, he knew, he had to apologize for hurting Dr. Larch's feelings--it had all just slipped out of him, and it made him almost cry to think that he had caused Dr. Larch any suffering. He went straight across the hall to the dispensary, where he could see what he thought were Dr. Larch's feet extending off the foot of the dispensary bed; the dispensary medicine cabinets blocked the rest of the bed from view. He spoke to Dr. Larch's feet, which to Homer's surprise were larger than he remembered them; he was also surprised that Dr. Larch--a neat man--had left his shoes on and that his shoes were muddy.

"Doctor Larch?" Homer said. "I'm sorry." When there was no response, Homer thought crossly to himself that Dr. Larch was under an unusually ill-timed ether sedation.

"I'm sorry, and I love you," Homer added, a little louder. He held his breath, listening for Larch's breathing, which he couldn't hear; alarmed, he stepped around the cabinets and saw the lifeless stationmaster stretched out on Larch's bed. It did not occur to Homer that this had been the first time someone had said "I love you" to the stationmaster.

There'd been no better place to put him. Nurse Edna and Nurse Angela had moved him out of the operating room. It would have been cruel to expect one of the abortion patients to tolerate his presence, or to put him alongside the expectant mother, and certainly it would have been upsetting to the orphans if the stationmaster had been stretched out on one of the dormitory beds.

"Goddamn it," Homer said.

"What's that?" L

arch asked. He was carrying Curly Day and calling to Homer from the dispensary door.

"Nothing," Homer Wells said. "Never mind."

"Curly's been having a very bad day," Dr. Larch explained.

"That's too bad, Curly," Homer said.

"Someone's come here to adopt someone," Curly said. "They're sort of shopping."

"I don't think so, Curly," Dr. Larch said.

"Tell them I'm the best one, okay, Homer?" Curly asked.

"Right," said Homer Wells. "You're the best."

"Wilbur!" Nurse Edna was calling. She and Nurse Angela were chattering at the hospital entrance door.

They traipsed out to see what was going on: the doctor, his unwilling apprentice, and the next-to-oldest orphan in the boys' division.

There was a small but busy crowd around the Cadillac. The trunk was open and the handsome young man was dispensing presents to the orphans.

"Sorry it's not the season for apples, kids," Wally was saying. "Or cider. You could all use a little cider!" he said cheerfully, handing out the jars of honey, the crab-apple and apple-cider jelly. The eager, dirty hands were grabbing. Mary Agnes Cork, the next-to-oldest orphan in the girls' division, was getting more than her share. (Melony had taught her how to dominate the front of a line.) Mary Agnes was a popular name with Mrs. Grogan, and Cork was the county in Ireland where Mrs. Grogan had been born. There'd been a number of little Corks in the girls' division.

"There's plenty to go around!" Wally said optimistically, as Mary Agnes put two honeys and one crab-apple down her blouse--then reached for more. A boy named Smoky Fields had opened his jar of apple-cider jelly and was eating it out of the jar with his hand. "It's really good on toast, in the morning," Wally said cautiously, but Smoky Fields stared at Wally as if toast was not a regular item on his diet or reliably available in the morning. Smoky Fields intended to finish the jar of jelly on the spot. Mary Agnes spied a horn-rim barrette on the convertible's back seat--it was one that Candy had put aside. Mary Agnes turned to face Candy, then dropped a second jar of crab-apple jelly at Candy's feet.