The Cider House Rules

by John Irving

  "Everybody calls me Wally," Wally said.

  "Melony and I were in the orphanage together," Homer explained.

  "Really?" Wally said enthusiastically. "That's great," he said. "Get them to show you around. Show her the house, too," Wally told Homer. "Maybe you'd like to take a swim?" he asked Melony, who, for once in her life, did not know what to say. "Dot?" Wally said to Big Dot Taft. "Get me a count of the number of bushels of Gravs we have in storage. I got a phone order waiting." He turned the wheelchair very smoothly and started to roll back to the office.

  "Meany knows how many we got," Florence Hyde said. "He was just in there."

  "Then someone get Meany to tell me," Wally said. "It's nice to meet you!" he called to Melony. "Please stay for supper."

  Candy almost choked, but she managed a hard swallow.

  "Thank you!" Melony called after Wally.

  He didn't need any help going in and out of the office, because Everett Taft had (years ago) taken the threshold off and arranged for the screen door to swing both ways--like a saloon door. Wally could come and go without assistance.

  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
ave enjoyed a few minutes of the discomfort she had caused him, but by the time she came downstairs she was no longer enjoying herself and her disappointment in Homer Wells was even deeper than her steadfast anger--it was nearly level with grief.

  "I somehow thought you'd end up doin' something' better than ballin' a poor cripple's wife and pretendin' your own child ain't your own," Melony said to Homer Wells. "You of all people--you, an orphan," she reminded him.

  "It's not quite like that," he started to tell her, but she shook her huge head and looked away from him.

  "I got eyes," Melony said. "I can see what it's like--it's like shit. It's ordinary, middle-class shit--bein' unfaithful and lyin' to the kids. You of all people!" Melony said. She had her hands thrust in her pockets; she took them out and clasped them behind her back; then she jammed them back in her pockets again. Every time she moved her hands, Homer flinched.

  Homer Wells had expected to be attacked by her; Melony was an attacker; but this was not the attack he had expected. He had imagined that he would, one day--when he saw her again--be a match for her, but now he knew that he would never be a match for Melony.

  "Do you think I get my rocks off embarrassin' you?" Melony asked him. "Do you think I was always lookin' for you--only to give you a bad time?"

  "I didn't know you were looking for me," said Homer Wells.

  "I had you figured all wrong," said Melony. Looking at her, Homer Wells realized that he'd had Melony figured all wrong, too. "I always thought you'd end up like the old man."

  "Like Larch?" Homer said.

  "Of course, like Larch!" Melony snapped at him. "I figured you for that--you know, the missionary. The do-gooder with his nose in the air."

  "I don't see Larch quite that way," Homer said.

  "Don't be snotty to me!" Melony cried, her raw face streaked with tears. "You've got your nose in the air--I got that part right. But you ain't exactly no missionary. You're a creep! You knocked up somebody you shouldn't 'a' been fuckin' in the first place, and you couldn't even come clean about it to your own kid. Some missionary! Ain't that brave? In my book, Sunshine, that's a creep," Angel told him.

  Then she left; she never asked him about the job; he never got to ask her how her life had been.

  He went upstairs to the bathroom and threw up; he filled the sink with cold water and soaked his head, but the throbbing had no end. One hundred seventy-five pounds of truth had struck him in the face and neck and chest--had constricted his breathing and made him ache. A vomit taste was in his mouth; he tried to brush his teeth but he cut himself in the hand before he saw the blade. He felt nearly as paralyzed above the waist as he knew Wally must feel below. When he reached for the towel by the shower door, he saw what else was wrong, he saw what was missing from the bathroom: the blank questionnaire, the one he'd never returned to the board of trustees of St. Cloud's was gone. It didn't take Homer Wells long to imagine how Melony might answer some of the questions.

  This new panic momentarily elevated him above his own self-pity. He called the orphanage immediately, and got Nurse Edna on the phone.

  "Oh, Homer!" she cried, so glad to hear his voice.

  "This is important," he told her. "I saw Melony."

  "Oh, Melony!" Nurse Edna cried happily. "Missus Grogan will be thrilled!"

  "Melony has a copy of the questionnaire," Homer said. "Please tell Doctor Larch--I don't think this is good news. That old questionnaire from the board of trustees."

  "Oh, dear," Nurse Edna said.

  "Of course she might never fill it out," Homer said, "but she has it--it says where to send it, right on the thing. And I don't know where she's gone; I don't know where she came from."

  "Was she married?" Nurse Edna asked. "Was she happy?"

  Jesus Christ, thought Homer Wells. Nurse Edna always shouted into the telephone; she was so old that she remembered only the days of bad connections.

  "Just tell Doctor Larch that Melony has the questionnaire. I thought he should know," said Homer Wells.

  "Yes, yes!" Nurse Edna shouted. "But was she happy?"

  "I don't think so," Homer said.

  "Oh, dear."

  "I thought she was going to stay for supper," Wally said, serving the swordfish.

  "I thought she wanted a job," Angel said.

  "What's she been doing with herself?" Wally asked.

  "If she wanted to pick apples," Candy said, "she can't be doing too much with herself."

  "I don't think she needed the job," Homer said.

  "She just wanted to look you over, Pop," Angel said, and Wally laughed. Angel had told Wally that Melony had been Homer's girlfriend, which Wally had thought was very funny.

  "I'll bet your dad never told you about Debra Pettigrew, kiddo," Wally said to Angel.

  "Oh, come on, Wally," Candy said. "That wasn't serious."

  "You left something out," Angel said to his father; Angel pointed his finger at Homer.

  "Yes," Homer admitted. "But Debra Pettigrew wasn't anyone special."

  "We used to double-date," Wally told Angel. "Your old man usually got the back seat."

  "Come on, Wally!" Candy said. She'd given Homer and Angel too many asparagus; she had to take some back, or there wouldn't be any for Wally or herself.

  "You should have seen your old man at his first drive-in," Wally said to Angel. "He didn't know what drive-ins were for!"

  "Maybe Angel doesn't know what they're for!" Candy said sharply to her husband.

  "Of course I know!" Angel said, laughing.

  "Of course he knows!" Wally said, also laughing.

  "Only Bedouins don't know," said Homer Wells, trying to go along with the fun.

  After supper, he helped Candy with the dishes while Angel drove around the orchards with Pete Hyde; after supper, almost every night, the boys had a game--they tried to drive through all the orchards before it was dark. Homer wouldn't let them drive in the orchards after dark--not after the apple crates had been put out for the pickers.

  Wally liked the twilight by the swimming pool. From the kitchen window, Homer and Candy could see him sitting in the wheelchair; he had tipped his head back, as if he were staring at the sky, but he was watching the spiral drifting of a hawk over the orchard called Cock Hill--some smaller birds were pestering the hawk, flying dangerously close to it, trying to drive it away.

  "It's time to tell," Homer said to Candy.

  "No, please," Candy said; she reached around him, where he was working at the sink, and dropped the broiler rack that the swordfish had been cooked on into the soapy water. The rack was greasy and stuck all over with charred bits of fish, but Homer Wells immediately pulled it out of the water--without letting it soak--and started scrubbing it.

  "It's time to tell everyone everything," said Homer Wells. "No more waiting and seeing."

  She stood behind him and put her arms around his hips; she pressed her face between his shoulder blades, but he did not return her embrace--or even turn to face her. He just kept scrubbing the broiler rack.

  "I'll work it out with you, any way you want to do it," Homer said. "Whether you want to be with me, when I tell Angel--whether you want me with you, when you tell Wally. Any way you want it, it'll be okay," he said.

  She hugged him as hard as she could but he just kept scrubbing. She buried her face between his shoulder blades and bit him in the back. He had to turn toward her then; he had to push her away.

  "You're going to make Angel hate me!" Candy cried.

  "Angel will never hate you," Homer said to her. "To Angel, you've always been just what you are--a good mother."

  She held the serving tongs for the asparagus, and Homer thought that she might attack him, but she just kept wrenching the tongs, open and closed, in her hands.

  "Wally will hate me!" she cried miserably.

  "You're always telling me that Wally knows," said Homer Wells. "Wally loves you."

  "And you don't love me, anymore, do you?" Candy said; she started to blubber; then she threw
the serving tongs at Homer, then she clenched her fists against her thighs. She bit down so hard on her lower lip that it bled; when Homer tried to dab at her lip with a clean dish towel, she pushed him away.

  "I love you, but we're becoming bad people," he said.

  She stamped her foot. "We're not bad people!" she cried. "We're trying to do the right thing, we're trying not to hurt anybody!"

  "We're doing the wrong thing," said Homer Wells. "It's time to do everything right."

  In a panic, Candy looked out the window; Wally was gone from his position at the far corner of the deep end of the pool. "We'll talk later," she whispered to Homer. She grabbed an ice cube out of someone's drinking glass; she held the cube to her lower lip. "I'll see you by the pool."

  "We can't talk about this around the pool," he told her.

  "I'll meet you at the cider house," she said; she was looking everywhere for Wally, wondering what door he'd come in--any second.

  "That's not a good idea, to meet there," said Homer Wells.

  "Just take a walk!" she snapped at him. "You walk there your way, I'll walk there my way--I'll meet you, Goddamn it," she said. She made it into the bathroom before Homer heard Wally at the terrace door.

  Candy was grateful for the special bathroom equipment--especially the sink at wheelchair level, like a sink for children in a kindergarten, like the sinks at St. Cloud's (she remembered). She knelt on the bathroom floor and hung her head in the sink; she turned her face under a faucet; the cold water was continuous against her lip.

  "How are the dishes coming?" Wally asked Homer, who was still laboring over the broiler rack.

  "Kind of messy tonight," Homer said.

  "I'm sorry," Wally said genuinely. "Where's Candy?" he asked.

  "I think she's in the bathroom."

  "Oh," said Wally. He wheeled himself over to the corner of the kitchen where the serving tongs and a few broken bits of asparagus were on the floor. He leaned down and picked up the tongs, which he delivered to Homer at the sink. "Want to see the last couple of innings of the ball game?" he asked Homer. "Let Candy do the fucking dishes." Wally wheeled himself out of the kitchen; he waited in the driveway for Homer Wells to bring the car around.

  They took Candy's Jeep, keeping the top down. It wasn't necessary to take the wheelchair; it was just a Little League game, and Homer could drive the Jeep right up to the foul line and they could watch the game from the car seats. The town was thrilled to have a lighted field, although it was stupid to play Little League games after dark; it kept the little kids up later than was necessary, and the field wasn't that well lit--home runs and long foul balls were always lost. The tiny infielders seemed to lose the high pop-ups. But Wally loved watching the kids play; when Angel had played, Wally had never missed a game. Angel was too old for Little League now, and he found watching the games the depths of boredom.