All the Way Home (4 page)

“Claude,” Julia said. “Your book is in French. Brick can’t read that.”

“He’ll piece it out with the pictures.”

“Such foolishness,” she said, but she smiled at Brick, her eyes glistening. They both knew it was Claude’s best book. Claude thumbed through it all the time, muttering about grafting branches, or pruning, or harvesting.

Brick held up the book. “I’ll keep it for now,” he said. “But someday I’ll bring it back.”

“I know that.” Claude’s voice was gruff. “Luck changes.”

Pop whistled again. Brick went down the steps, brushing the top of Regal’s head with one hand. He took the path through the orchard, touching the trunks of the trees he had helped save, and opened the door of his own house.

Mom stood in the parlor with Pop, crying the way Julia had. Her freckled face was streaked with tears, her curly hair flattened from leaning against Pop’s shoulder. And Pop was holding his face so tight it seemed as if it would crack. He had looked that way since the other night. Brick wanted to reach out and hug him, hug them both, tell them he loved them, tell them …

“Leaving,” Mom said, her hands out, shaking her head. “The three of us.”

Going every which way like the crazy quilt she had made for his bed.

The other night they had sat on the couch, Pop’s long legs spread out, Mom with her arm around Brick’s shoulders, swiping at her soft dark eyes with a handkerchief, the sound of the radio in the background.

“Remember,” Mom had begun. “Remember I told you about my friend from nursing school?”

“Loretta? The one who sent wool scarves and mittens and …?” He tried to remember.

“Yes. Loretta, the best nurse I ever knew. We came to Windy Hill together to work with the polio kids.”

It was too much to think about, nurses and polio, and what was going to happen to them now.

“Loretta adopted a little girl with polio,” Mom said. “She wanted to go back to Brooklyn, where we had grown up.”

“We’re going to Brooklyn?”

Mom caught her breath. “Listen,” she said. “This is just going to be for a year. For us. For the farm. If we can just do this thing, maybe …”

Pop moved toward the window, running his hands through his hair, the pane dark, outside a blur, the burnt trees softer. “There’s a factory,” he said, “fifty miles north of here. It’s good money, making engine parts. Enough money to save some for once in our lives.”

“And for me …” Mom squeezed Brick’s shoulder. “There’s a job in Philadelphia with a sick woman who needs a nurse. I can live with her, take care of her, and save every cent.”

Brick shook his head. Philadelphia?

Pop turned from the window and sat down heavily at the end of the couch, his eyes glistening. “If you could go to Brooklyn …”

Brooklyn. Loretta. Brick’s mouth was dry. If he
hadn’t stopped that day to fool around with the baseball bat, he would have been past Claude’s. He would have been home to help. They might have saved their own trees.

But how could he even think of that?

“I’m going to Brooklyn? Alone? Going to that nurse?” he said. “The one who …”

Mom nodded. “I’ll write to you every single day.”

Pop put his hand on Brick’s shoulder. “I can’t think of any other way,” he said slowly.

Mom reached for his hand. “You’ll like Loretta, you’ll see. They’re not far from Ebbets Field, where the Dodgers play. You can go to a real game.”

Brooklyn with a nurse. Brooklyn with a girl who had been sick with polio. Brooklyn.

He had looked up at the picture of the Dodgers, with scrawled autographs on one side. That had been his Christmas present from Claude last year.

And then it was the last minute. The pickup truck was on the gravel driveway; suitcases were lined up in the hall.

Next winter, the house would be cold, without heat. Mice would scurry around the linoleum floor, and flies would pile up dead on the windowsill.

He grabbed Pop’s sleeve, the sharp line Mom had ironed under his fingers. He felt as if he were reaching out to someone he hardly knew.

Pop looked down at him and ran his hand over Brick’s head.

“We can stay right here,” Brick said. “I’ll get a job after school working at Butler’s. I can even quit school.”

The moment he mentioned school, he knew he had said the wrong thing. Mom stopped crying and started to shake her head.

But they knew he wasn’t a kid for school. He sat there in the classroom, day after day, all winter long, waiting. He’d look out the window across the snowy fields, thinking about Julia’s kitchen and how he’d listen to Claude tell him about the apple trees, the way to plant, the way to prune. And at home, he loved to be in the barn, warm and steamy, milking the cows. Sometimes on a cold day, he’d lie across the back of the broadest one, Essa, feeling her warmth and listening to the sound of the barn wood creaking around him. Essa sold now, the barn empty.

“I could get a job,” he said again. He was good with his hands. He had worked at Butler’s last summer moving barrels and crates.

“Never,” Mom said. “You have to study. You have to read every day. You have to learn. Every single piece of knowledge is important. Besides, you’re not going to wrestle with fields that wither away in …” She stopped and closed her eyes. Brick knew she couldn’t say
a fire
. “… in the heat,” she finished slowly.

Through the window he could see that a gray car had pulled up in back of the truck. It was the car that would take him to Brooklyn.

“Take hands.” Mom reached out to them. They stood in the middle of the room, Pop on one side of him, Mom on the other.

“A year.” Pop’s voice was high and strained. “One fall, one winter, one spring, and part of a summer.”

Brick shook his head.

“Think about Christmas,” Mom said. “Somehow we’ll be together then.”

“And we’ll get through,” Pop said.

“But the farm?” Brick asked.

“It’ll wait for us.” Pop spread his hands. “Locked up tight, with Claude to watch over it.” He sighed. “It will have to wait. We’ll hope …”

He looked so sad, Brick thought, no, so ashamed, as if the fire were all his fault, as if it were his fault he hadn’t gotten the loan they needed, his fault they had just held on and held on until there was no holding anymore.

Now they were going.
Every which way like the quilt
.

And the time was really up. A honking sound came from the gray car. The man was leaning on the horn.

Mom tried to smile. “We’ll start over again.”

Honking still. Brick took a last look at the living room. The corner cabinets were filled with the yellow bowls Mom had gotten at the movies. He reached up and ran his fingers over the picture of the Dodgers. And then they were outside.

“You’re a good boy,” Pop said. “The best. I know you’ll always do what’s right.”

Mom hugged him, rocking back and forth. He kissed her, then climbed into the car, holding Claude’s book.

Pop reached inside, touching his shoulder. “I’m proud of you for saving Claude’s orchard,” he said. “I’ll think of it every day all winter. I’ll remember it forever.”

“Drive carefully, Mr. Henry.” Mom looked at the man uneasily. It was someone they didn’t know, a man who was doing this for a few dollars.

“I’m in a hurry,” Mr. Henry said irritably, taking the money Pop held out to him.

The car picked up speed as it left the farm behind. Brick stared straight ahead at the driver’s flat ears, his sparse hair.

The main street of the town flashed by, Logan’s ice cream store, the church, Butler’s Feed, Good Samaritan, the big gray hospital set back on the hill, and then the sign:
THANK YOU FOR VISITING WINDY HILL. COME AGAIN SOON
.

It was only then that Brick began to realize something. He sat up slowly, feeling sick. It was September. How could Claude pick the apples with his hands like that, with only Joseph, who was mostly useless, and Julia, who was too fragile to climb? Pick them, and pack them, and take them to the market? No one else was around to help now that he and Pop weren’t there. Last year, even Mom had helped, working long hours, her face sunburned, driving the truck.

He had ruined everything. Saved Claude’s apples for nothing, lost their own trees. He wanted to stop the driver and jump out, but instead he closed his eyes as the driver turned, taking the road out to the highway. He could hear the sound of the wheels:
Saved Claude’s apples for nothing, for nothing
.

6

T
he car chugged along, and Mr. Henry, the driver, hardly said more than two words. Brick pressed his nose against the glass, watching the road and all the places he hadn’t seen before. He tried not to think of Mom and Pop, or Claude’s hands, or the apples that would never be picked.

The land began to flatten out now; the hills were lower. He could see a barn here and there, fields of cows, and then they were gone. Ugly little towns appeared, the houses crowded next to each other, small gray buildings, a school with a flag in front.

The smell of gas from the car made him feel queasy and he closed his eyes, listening to the motor. He kept seeing Mom and Pop in his mind, Mom’s dark eyes, Pop
leaning over toward him. He kept remembering what Pop had said:
“I’m proud of you for saving Claude’s orchard. I’ll think of it every day.”

After a while the car slowed down and the driver pulled up in front of a grocery store. Brick opened his eyes to watch him go inside, reach into his pocket for change, and take a Coke out of the soda bin.

Claude. He could see Claude in his mind, too. Claude with his hands in bandages.

Brick glanced at the store window again. Mr. Henry held the bottle up to his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

If only he didn’t have to go to Brooklyn. If only … And then suddenly it came to him. He knew what he could do. Go back. Go back to help Claude harvest the apples. Everything wouldn’t be such a waste then. And he knew something else. That was what Pop would have done if he could. He was sure of it. He reached for the door handle, but the man came outside, the bottle of soda in his hand.

There was no time to get across the road, not even time to open the door.

He sat back as they drove off, thinking about how long the trip was, thinking about how he could do it, when he could do it, how long it would take him to walk all the way home. But the driver never stopped. Finally, Brick dozed, dreaming of dusty yellow movie dishes.

When he opened his eyes, the world had that look of light going, the end of an early-September day. He raised his head.

A city. That was what this place must be. There were reddish-brown houses in rows, paved streets in squares, a huge cemetery with iron gates, church steeples. Brooklyn.

Mr. Henry was talking to himself, slowing down, looking at house numbers. “There.” He pointed, then stopped the car.

Brick swallowed.

“Don’t forget your bag.”

Brick reached for the case next to him, glancing up at the brown house.

“I don’t have all day,” Mr. Henry said.

Brick closed the car door in back of him. He climbed the steps and put his hand on the bell. But he didn’t press it. He waited as the man drove up the street and turned the corner.

Then he jumped off the steps, his suitcase in one hand, Claude’s book in the other, running faster than he ever had, running in the opposite direction. He kept going until he felt he had no breath left, coughing, not able to take one more step.

He stopped then, and crouched down in back of a row of garbage cans at the back door of a restaurant. He knew it wasn’t a good place to hide. He was too close to the screen door; he could hear people talking inside the
kitchen. He stayed there only long enough to breathe easily again; then he went on, going from one block to another. He had no idea where he was or where he should go. And then, out of nowhere it seemed, he was standing in front of a huge building. He looked up to see the sign:
EBBETS FIELD
.

How could that be? He went closer, moving up to the entrance to see inside: shiny marble floors with markings that looked like baseball stitching, chandeliers with baseballs.