Homecoming (24 page)

“Yes.”

“Do you think Maybeth could go crazy like that?”

“Yes. If—if she had to. You know? Momma had four kids and no job. Our father walked
out on her.”

“But we were happy, weren’t we? When we were in Provincetown. We were, I know it.
Momma wasn’t crazy then.”

“Maybe. I don’t know, Dicey. Does that mean this is our home?”

“Yeah. I guess so. I don’t know, James. Would you like that?”

“It’s a good school,” James said. “I’ve never been in a school like this, where the
teachers all know so much and they like it when you ask questions and they keep giving
you more work. Nothing bothers the fathers, you know? Oh, swearing and things, those.
But they’re so sure they have the answers, they don’t mind you asking questions. In
this school, I’m really glad I’m me. I can learn anything—do you know how that feels,
Dicey? The fathers show me how and I learn. You better believe I’m happy.”

“Should we tell Sammy and Maybeth?”

“About Momma? I guess so, sometime. Not right now. Or is right away better?”

So they woke the two younger children and told them the bad news. Maybeth just nodded
and sat closer to Dicey on the cot.

Sammy stuck his chin out. “She’ll still get better maybe,” he declared. “How do they
know so much anyway. I don’t care what they say. I won’t believe them.”

Dicey grinned at him, unable to stretch her mouth wide enough to let out all the feelings
his silly stubbornness let her feel. Then she began to cry. “I’m sorry, Dicey,” Maybeth
said.

“Me too,” Dicey said, burying her face in her sister’s hair. “I’m sorry too.”

Now she had to go on Monday and find out fast what Crisfield was like. What their
grandmother was like. Cousin Eunice would flutter and flitter, and before they knew
it the Tillermans would be adopted. Or something worse.

It was not that Dicey was ungrateful. They might end up here. Cousin Eunice’s house
might be the best place for them. Even for Sammy and Maybeth. It might be the best
they could do, even if Sammy and Maybeth had to go somewhere else. But Dicey had to
know that for sure.

That weekend she took the family to the beach. She was especially careful to pay attention
to them. She laughed at Sammy’s jokes and turned cartwheels on the sand with him and
tossed him up over her shoulders into the water until he was exhausted. She built
castles with Maybeth, decorating them with bits of shell and colored stones, telling
stories about princesses and giants. She talked with James about history and science,
listening with all her brain, so her questions would show that she was really interested.

Monday morning, she walked them all to camp and school.
Sammy hesitated at the gate and said, “I wish it was always the weekend.”

Dicey ruffled his hair.

Maybeth let go of Dicey’s hand and walked slowly over to where the little girls were
gathering. Her dress was too long for her. She looked clumsy.

Dicey asked James to pick up the little children. “I’ll leave the door unlocked. I’ve
got something to do,” she explained. “Can you get them at the end of the day? And
don’t be late—Maybeth worries.”

James smiled happily over his pile of books. “Sure thing,” he said. He ran up the
steps to the doorway and turned to wave before he went inside.

Dicey hurried back to the little gray house. She had already told her customers she
was taking the week off. She pulled the overnight case out from under her bed, put
underwear, toothbrush, clean shirts and shorts into it. She put in the shoebox with
her money the bus schedule and her map of Maryland. She would wear a dress for traveling.

Downstairs, Dicey wrote a hasty note to James, asking him to take charge until she
got back, telling him where she was going, saying she was sorry but he would have
to tell Cousin Eunice. She put her house key into the envelope and sealed it. She
wrote James’s name on the front and left it on the kitchen table. Suitcase in hand,
Dicey opened the front door.

James sat on the stoop.

“I thought so!” he crowed, laughing at her as she stood, open-mouthed, the suitcase
in one hand, the door knob in the other. “You can’t fool me!”

“I left you a note,” Dicey said. “I’ve got to hurry or I’ll miss the bus.”

“The next bus doesn’t leave Bridgeport until ten,” James
answered. “You’ve got a whole hour.” He smirked at her.

“James!” Dicey cried. “You’ve been snooping in my things.”

“And here comes Sammy, right on schedule,” James said. “I told him, when I found that
money box. Besides, there was that man at the park, the grocer. I’d make a good detective.
We’re going with you.”

“I don’t have enough money,” Dicey said. “What about Maybeth?”

“You’ll think up a way,” James said. “Where are we going anyway?”

“But what about your school?” Dicey asked. “I mean, you’re the one who’s really happy
here. I will come back, you know that.”

“How do I know it?” James asked her. “I know you mean to—but what if you can’t, or
don’t?”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Dicey protested.

“How do you know? How does anybody know? I don’t want you to leave me behind. Besides,
school—well, Dicey? Listen. It’s me that makes the school so good, my brain. Other
kids don’t like it as much as I do. So, there are books all over the world, in libraries.
The fathers help me, an awful lot—but there must be other schools with good teachers.
Even if there aren’t, I’ll always be me.”

“Are you sure, James?”

“I’m sure I want to go with you. And so does Sammy.”

Dicey couldn’t think clearly. She couldn’t think at all.

Sammy marched up to them. “I crossed four streets with lights,” he announced. “Hi,
Dicey. I didn’t believe James, but he was right.”

Dicey didn’t even try to argue further. They all went back inside. She sent the boys
upstairs to get changes of underwear for everyone, and shorts and shirts. She changed
into shorts herself. She wrote another note, to Cousin Eunice this time, a
note much harder to write. Dicey knew that Cousin Eunice wouldn’t understand, no matter
what she said.

“We are going to Crisfield,” she wrote. “I don’t want you to worry about us, because
I will take care of everyone. I don’t know what will happen there. When we find out,
I’ll write to you.” Dicey chewed on the end of the pencil and tried to think of some
way to let Cousin Eunice know that they were grateful to her. “No matter what happens
to us, I think you should go ahead and become a nun because it is what you really
want to do,” she wrote. “Your cousin, Dicey Tillerman.” Once again, she put the house
key in the envelope and sealed it.

*  *  *

Dicey went alone to fetch Maybeth. The boys waited at the corner, with the suitcase.

Dicey walked right into the playground. Groups of little girls ran around. The young
nun approached her. Dicey took a deep breath. “I’ve come for Maybeth Tillerman,” she
said. “I’m her sister. Sister Berenice said I should pick her up now,” she lied.

The nun hesitated. She squinted her eyes at Dicey.

“You can go and ask Sister Berenice if you like,” Dicey said. “But then we’ll be late
for Maybeth’s appointment and she’ll be angry.”

The nun called Maybeth from the sandbox where she was playing alone. Dicey took the
little girl’s hand and walked slowly out through the gates. She had to hold herself
back from running.

“Where are we going?” Maybeth asked.

“We’re going to see the place Momma lived in when she was a little girl,” Dicey answered.

“All of us together?”

“All of us together,” Dicey said. “That’s the only way the Tillermans travel.”

T
he motor rumbled like hunger in the belly of the bus. The fumes that floated in through
the open windows were swollen with heat. They were on their way. Again.

Dicey leaned back in her seat and tried to make herself relax. They had until evening,
when Cousin Eunice got home. Unless the camps wondered why all the Tillermans were
absent and called Cousin Eunice at work. She didn’t think that was likely.

James leaned toward Dicey. They were the only people sitting in the back of the bus.
Nobody would hear them over the sound of the motor.

“It’s like a prison break, isn’t it?”

Dicey knew what he meant. Even so, “That’s not fair,” she said. “Cousin Eunice wasn’t
a jailer.”

James shrugged. “Whadda you think?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth. “I think,
if we can get to New York without being caught—we’ll be home free.”

Home, Dicey thought. She remembered the inscription on the tombstone:
Home is the sailor, home is the hunter.
Until she died, Dicey wouldn’t expect any place to be home. Home was with Momma—and
Momma was in a hospital where the doctors said she’d always stay. There could be no
home for the Tillermans. Home free—Dicey would settle for a place to stay. Stay free.

Cousin Eunice’s house wasn’t free; it was expensive. The price
was always remembering to be grateful. And there was danger to Sammy and Maybeth,
of being sent to foster homes or special schools; danger to Dicey and James of forgetting
and saying what they thought before wondering if it would sound ungrateful. At Cousin
Eunice’s house, they were kept busy so they wouldn’t be a bother, couldn’t get in
trouble.

Dicey had lowered her sights. She no longer hoped for a home. Now she wanted only
a place where the Tillermans could be themselves and do what was good for them. Home
was out of the question. Stay might be possible, if this grandmother could be persuaded. . . .

Dicey stopped thinking. She wanted to keep it simple. Get to Crisfield and see, that
was her plan. That was all of it.

“Anyway, they know where we’re going,” Dicey told James.

“How could they know that?”

“I said so in the note I left.”

“Dicey! Why’d you do that?”

“I don’t think it would be fair to leave her to worry.”

“She’ll worry anyway. She likes worrying.”

“I can’t help that, James. I can’t help what she’s like. I can only help what I’m
like.”

“You’ve ruined it,” James went on. “We can’t be running away if they know where we’re
going.”

“We’re not running away—we never were running away,” Dicey said. “We’re just going
to see.”

James shook his head. “I’m running away. Before—we were always the ones who were run
away from. This time I want us to do it. What’s your plan?”

Dicey didn’t answer.

The road flowed under the wheels. They were back on Route 1. Maybe it was her doom,
always to get back on Route 1. She squeezed Maybeth’s fingers. “Maybeth? What’s the
matter? You scared?”

Maybeth looked at Dicey and nodded.

“So am I, a little,” Dicey said. “We’ll just wait and see. That’s all we can do.”

“I don’t want to go back.” Maybeth spoke in a small voice.

“I thought you liked it,” Dicey said. “The church, the pretty dress you wore there,
all the attention.”

“I did,” Maybeth said.

Dicey decided to tell the truth, now. “We might have to go back. Do you know that?”

Maybeth nodded.

Well, Dicey thought. She had underestimated Maybeth. She’d been fooled, like the nuns
were fooled and Maybeth’s teachers. She’d been fooled into thinking Maybeth wasn’t
who she knew Maybeth was.

“Look, Maybeth,” Dicey said, “if we do have to go back I’ll go with you to church,
and we’ll both talk to the nuns. To Sister Berenice. I won’t leave you alone so much.”

Maybeth smiled, a tenuous little smile, and turned back to the window.

Smog made the air seem thick, like light, yellowed fog. In the heavy traffic the bus
stopped and started, stopped and started. Buildings soared up higher than Dicey could
see out the window. She twisted her head down to see their tops.

The bus turned onto a new street and headed east. Dicey felt as if they were in a
maze and would never make their way out. Cars honked. Lights changed. They traveled
down a narrow channel over which other roads crossed on high bridges. All the traffic,
all the people, the tall buildings—Dicey felt scared, and exhilarated. There was so
much life, all here in one place, teeming, whirling about her. More than at the crowded
summer beaches in Provincetown. It was like a pot of vegetable soup boiling on a stove,
everything moving. A restlessness and excitement
came into Dicey with the air she breathed. Anything can happen, she thought.

At last the bus turned off into a huge warehouse. It followed a ramp, up and around,
then fitted itself into a slot before a wall of glass doors. It became one of a row
of buses.

The Tillermans stood up. Dicey led them to the front of the bus and down the steps,
one after another, onto the sidewalk before the doors. Everyone was hurrying. Everyone
acted as if he or she or they knew exactly where to go.

“What now, Dicey?” asked James.

“An information booth,” she answered briskly. “Then bathrooms, and maybe something
to eat.”

They entered a huge, hollow hall lined with benches and ticket windows. Emptiness
hung high over their heads although the room was crowded with people. The information
booth was in the center of this hall. Dicey stationed her family by a water fountain
and went up to stand in line.

When her turn finally came, she couldn’t think straight. The girl behind the glass
window spoke without looking at Dicey: “Next? Little boy?”

Dicey gulped. “When’s the next bus to Wilmington, Delaware?”

Without speaking, the girl handed her a schedule.

“Where are the bathrooms?” Dicey asked.

“Lower level, on the street side.”

“Where can I buy a ticket?”

“Upper level, any window with a yellow or green light.”

Dicey fled, dragging her suitcase.

“She thought I was a boy,” she said to James.

“So did Louis and Edie,” he answered.

Dicey put the suitcase down and opened the schedule. They had forty minutes to wait.
She would play it safe. “Okay, listen,
James. Take this money”—she gave him a ten dollar bill—“and go get two tickets for
Wilmington. That ticket window over there with a green light.”