Homer Wells is adopted by several families but always returned to St. Cloud's orphanage, eventually accepting the orphanage as his true home.

Dr. Larch performs his first safe abortion in Boston after a young woman he knew is killed by a backstreet abortionist.

Homer discovers an aborted fetus in the hospital garbage and confronts Dr. Larch about his secret work as an abortionist.

A sickly orphan named Fuzzy Stone dies at St. Cloud's, and Dr. Larch and Homer secretly tell the other children he was adopted.

Dr. Larch invents a false heart condition for Homer and informs the Worthington family, secretly ensuring Homer will not be drafted.

A young couple named Candy Kendall and Wally Worthington arrive at St. Cloud's for an abortion, and Wally invites Homer to Ocean View.

Homer leaves St. Cloud's with Candy and Wally; Melony, furious at his departure, runs away from the orphanage to find him.

Wally Worthington signs up as a fighter pilot and ships out to the war, eventually flying bombing missions over Burma.

Wally's plane is shot down over Burma and the Worthington family receives a report that he is presumed dead.

Homer and Candy spend a night together in the cider house at Ocean View and conceive a child.

Candy gives birth to a boy named Angel at St. Cloud's; a telegram then arrives announcing Wally survived his crash.

Homer and Candy return to Ocean View with baby Angel, telling Olive and Ray they adopted an orphan from St. Cloud's.

Homer discovers that a young harvest worker named Rose is pregnant by her own father and performs an abortion to help her.

Homer calls St. Cloud's to help Rose and learns over the phone that Dr. Larch has died from an ether overdose.

Homer impersonates the long-dead orphan Fuzzy Stone and returns to St. Cloud's to take over Dr. Larch's role as director and abortionist.

Homer Wells grows up at St. Cloud's orphanage under the mentorship of Dr. Wilbur Larch, a secret abortionist who trains him in medicine and hopes to make him his successor. When a young coastal couple named Candy and Wally visit the orphanage, Homer leaves with them to start a new life at Ocean View apple orchard. Wally goes off to war and is presumed dead, allowing Homer and Candy's relationship to become romantic and producing a son they name Angel. The family lives under compounding layers of deception for years, concealing Angel's true parentage and Homer and Candy's ongoing affair from everyone around them. The arrival of migrant workers forces a crisis that leads Homer to perform his first abortion and to learn of Dr. Larch's sudden death. Homer ultimately resolves to return to St. Cloud's under a false identity to carry on Dr. Larch's mission.

The core story of Homer Wells, from orphanhood to fulfilling Dr. Larch's legacy.

Homer witnesses his foster parents the Winkles drown in a river accident during a camping trip, cementing his attachment to St. Cloud's.

Dr. Larch's father buys him a night with a Portland sex worker as a graduation gift, which leads to his lifelong ether addiction.

Dr. Larch later encounters the same sex worker dying from a self-induced abortion; her daughter is then killed by a backstreet abortionist.

Dr. Larch confronts a backstreet abortionist and rescues one patient from her waiting room — a teenage girl who was raped by her father.

Homer reads David Copperfield aloud to the boys' dormitory and Jane Eyre to the girls' dormitory each night at St. Cloud's.

Homer successfully delivers his first baby at the hospital, managing a difficult birth in which the mother is suffering from eclampsia.

Homer discovers a typed list of cider house rules pinned to the wall of the migrant workers' house at Ocean View.

Grace Lynch, an orchard worker and abuse victim, nearly sexually assaults Homer when he is alone in the cider house.

Wally Worthington's father vandalizes a local store; Dr. Larch diagnoses his long-misunderstood erratic behavior as Alzheimer's disease.

Melony fights off two male workers who attack her while she is leaving York Orchard and forces the overseer to hire her.

Melony finds work on an assembly line at a Bath shipyard and befriends a tough young woman named Lorna.

Homer confesses his love to Candy after a private memento from her abortion accidentally falls from his wallet in public.

Olive Worthington dies of cancer before Wally returns from war; Candy's father Ray dies in an explosion from a homemade torpedo.

Mr. Rose brings his teenage daughter Rose and her infant to the cider house for harvest season; Angel immediately falls in love with Rose.

Melony's body arrives at St. Cloud's after she dies in an electrocution accident; Homer gives her a respectful burial under an apple tree.

Dr. Larch's backstory explains how a youthful encounter with a sex worker led him to ether addiction and ultimately to his calling as a secret abortionist serving the poor. At St. Cloud's, Homer masters the routines of the orphanage — reading to the children, delivering his first baby — before venturing out into the world of Ocean View orchard. Life at the orchard brings its own dramas, including a near assault in the cider house, a community crisis around Wally's ailing father, and Homer's growing love for Candy. Meanwhile, Melony carves out her own rough path through orchards and shipyards, making a life far from St. Cloud's with a woman named Lorna. The deaths of Olive and Ray reshape the family at Ocean View, while the arrival of Mr. Rose's daughter sets the novel's final crisis in motion. The pool closes with Melony's death and her deliberate return to St. Cloud's, quietly mirroring Homer's own journey home.

The supporting stories that shape Homer's world, from Dr. Larch's origins to Melony's journey.

Melony bribes Homer to search Dr. Larch's office for her mother's identity, but Dr. Larch catches him and reveals all parent records are destroyed.

Dr. Larch finds a pornographic photograph that Homer has been hiding and decides Homer is ready to observe procedures in the hospital.

Dr. Larch informs the Worthington family about Homer's fabricated heart condition to protect him from the draft, keeping Homer himself completely unaware.

Homer tells Dr. Larch he will not perform abortions, though he makes clear he supports a woman's right to choose.

Dr. Larch builds a false adult life for the dead orphan Fuzzy Stone, including a Harvard medical degree, to fool the board of directors.

Homer takes Mr. Rose to the Ferris wheel one night, where Mr. Rose is forced to defend himself with his knife against hostile onlookers.

Melony reads Jane Eyre aloud to her orchard crew at York Farms and breaks down crying when a passage reminds her of Homer.

Candy tells Homer she loves both him and Wally equally and will not choose between them, leaving their situation unresolved.

Wally returns from the war paralyzed below the waist; he and Candy marry while Homer remains at Ocean View as Candy's secret lover.

A board of directors member named Mrs. Goodhall begins targeting Dr. Larch with an accusation of being a nonpracticing homosexual.

Dr. Larch sends Homer a medical bag engraved with the initials F.S. for Fuzzy Stone, implicitly ordering Homer to return to St. Cloud's.

Melony visits Ocean View on a working vacation and immediately recognizes that Angel is Homer's biological son, confronting Homer angrily.

Rose shows Angel the knife marks on her body, revealing that her father Mr. Rose has been physically abusing her.

Mr. Rose dies from stab wounds inflicted by his escaping daughter and instructs Homer to tell everyone his death was a suicide.

Homer tells Angel the truth about his biological parents; Candy separately reveals the truth about her affair with Homer to Wally.

From the moment Melony tries to use Homer to uncover her past, he is caught between the demands of others and his own emerging sense of right and wrong. Dr. Larch's deceptions — Homer's fake heart condition, the invented identity of Fuzzy Stone — reveal a man who uses storytelling and manipulation to control the people he loves most. Homer's early refusal to perform abortions sets up the central tension of the novel, a conflict that follows him through years of orchard life and secret romance with Candy. The domestic situation at Ocean View grows increasingly unstable as hidden truths press toward the surface, culminating in Melony's visit, which shatters Homer's self-deception about the life he has built. The violence surrounding Mr. Rose and his daughter forces Homer to finally act on his long-held beliefs about abortion and choice. By the novel's end, Homer and Candy tell the truths they have suppressed for years, clearing the way for Homer to claim Dr. Larch's legacy on his own terms.

The key decisions and discoveries that force Homer to define his own moral code.