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"Good night, Wilbur!" Nurse Edna managed to say, while Nurse Angela summoned her strength for the usual refrain, and Nurse Caroline, who hoped the evening wind would dry her tears, marched down the hill to the railroad station--once again to inform the frightened stationmaster that there was a body in St. Cloud's.
That Sunday at Ocean View was an Indian summer day, and Homer Wells was fishing. Not real fishing: Homer was trying to find out more about the relationship between Mr. Rose and his daughter. The two men sat on the cider house roof--for the most part, they weren't talking. Not talking too much, Homer assumed, was the only way to go fishing with Mr. Rose.
Below them, Angel was trying to teach Rose Rose how to ride a bicycle. Homer had offered to drive Rose Rose and Angel to the beach (and to drive back and pick them up at some designated hour), but it mattered to Angel that he and Rose Rose were independent--to be driven to the beach only emphasized that he was still waiting to be old enough to get his driver's license. The beach was too far to walk to, and Homer wouldn't allow Angel to hitchhike; but it was only a four-or five-mile ride on a bike, and the road was mostly flat.
Mr. Rose observed the lesson placidly, but Homer grew anxious for Rose Rose to succeed on the bicycle; he knew how much preparation had gone into the proposed trip--how Angel had fussed over both his own and Candy's bicycles, and how Angel had discussed (with Candy) which of Candy's bathing suits would be the most suitable for
Rose Rose. Together, they had chosen an emerald-green one--it had one pink, spiraled, barber-pole stripe, and Candy was sure the suit would fit Rose Rose better than it fit her; it had always been too loose in the bust and in the hips for Candy.
"It's the kind of thing you're supposed to learn when you're a little kid, I guess," Homer Wells observed of the bicycle lesson. Angel would run alongside the wobbly bicycle, which Rose Rose struggled to ride. After the bike was moving at a comfortable speed, Angel would release his hold on it. Rose Rose would either not pedal--hugging the bike until it simply ran out of speed and toppled--or else she would pedal furiously, but without guidance. She seemed unable to balance the bicycle and pedal it at the same time. And her hands appeared frozen on the handlebars; for her to balance, and pedal, and steer simultaneously looked, increasingly, like a distant miracle.
"Can you ride one?" Mr. Rose asked Homer.
"I never tried," said Homer Wells. "I'd probably have a little trouble," he admitted; it looked easy enough to him. There were no bicycles at the orphanage; the children might have used them to ride away. The only bicycle in St. Cloud's was the stationmaster's, and he rarely rode it.
"I never tried, either," said Mr. Rose. He watched his daughter careen over a slight hill; she shrieked, the bike jackknifed, she fell--and Angel Wells ran to her, to help her up.
A line of men sat with their backs against the cider house wall; some were drinking coffee, some were drinking beer, but all of them watched the bicycle lesson. Some were encouraging--and as vocal as local fans, rooting at a sporting event--and others watched the procedure as placidly as Mr. Rose.
It had been going on for a while, and the applause--what there'd been of it--grew spottier and more random.
"Don't give up," Angel said to Rose Rose.
"I not givin' up," Rose Rose said. "Did I say I was givin' up?"
"You remember what you said to me, once, about the rules?" Homer asked Mr. Rose.
"What rules?" Mr. Rose asked.
"You know, those rules I put up every year in the cider house," Homer said. "And you mentioned that you had other rules--your own rules for living here."
"Yeah, those rules," said Mr. Rose.
"I thought you meant that your rules were about not hurting each other--I thought they were about being careful," Homer said. "Sort of like my rules, too, I guess."
"Say what you mean, Homer," said Mr. Rose.
"Is someone getting hurt?" Homer asked. "I mean, this year--is there some kind of trouble?"
Rose Rose was up on the bicycle; her look was grim; both she and Angel were sweating. It appeared to Homer that Rose Rose was jouncing on the seat too hard, almost intentionally hurting herself; or else she was treating herself so roughly in order to give herself the intensity she needed to master the machine. She wobbled off a knoll, out of sight behind some apple trees, and Angel sprinted after her.
"Why don't they just walk?" the picker named Peaches asked. "They coulda been there by now."
"Why don't someone take 'em in some car?" another man asked.
"They wanna do it they own way," Muddy said. There was a little laughter about that.
"Show some respect," said Mr. Rose. Homer thought Mr. Rose was speaking to him, but he was speaking to the men, who stopped laughing. "Pretty soon, that bicycle gonna break," Mr. Rose said to Homer.
Rose Rose was wearing a pair of blue jeans, some heavy work shoes and a white T-shirt; because she was sweating, the outline and the colors of the emerald-green and pink bathing suit were visible through her shirt.
"Imagine her learnin' to swim," said Mr. Rose.
Homer Wells felt bad for Angel, but another subject weighed more heavily on his mind.
"About someone being hurt," Homer said. "About the rules."
Mr. Rose reached into his pocket, slowly, and Homer half expected to see the knife, but it was not the knife that Mr. Rose removed from his pocket and very gently placed in Homer's hand--it was the burned-down nub of a candle. It was what was left of the candle Candy had lit for their lovemaking in the cider house. In her panic--when she thought it was Wally who had caught them there--she had forgotten it.
