Homecoming (26 page)

Sammy stuck his jaw out.

“Ice cream’s cheaper,” Dicey said. “Double dip?”

“Can I have seconds?” James asked.

“We’ll see how hungry you are,” Dicey said.

James agreed.

“But first I’ve got to figure out a couple of things, okay?”

“Like what?” James asked.

“Like where to sleep, and how to find an army-navy surplus store. And how to get across
the bay.”

“Get across the bay? Why?”

Dicey pulled out the map again and showed him where they were. Then she pointed out
Crisfield.

“Oh, Dicey. What are we doing on this side?”

“I told you, we missed the last bus.”

“Yeah but—” James caught a glimpse of Dicey’s face and stopped speaking.

“I know. I know. But if we can just get across, we’ll be much nearer.”

“How can we do that? Okay, we’re here. We need a place to sleep tonight, right?”

“I guess. The army-navy store will be closed, wherever it is.”

“If there is one.”

“I’m sorry, James,” Dicey said. “I panicked. When I found out we’d missed the last
bus—”

“It’s okay, Dicey. I just thought you had it all planned.”

“I did. For me to go.”

“Are you angry at us?” Sammy asked this. It sounded like the beginning of a quarrel.

“No. Well, yes, a little, but that doesn’t matter. I’d rather be all
together. Really, I would. I’m just confused still because I didn’t have any plan
for all of us. Can you understand that?”

Sammy didn’t answer.

“I was going to come back,” Dicey said to him.

He looked at her, with the question in his hazel eyes. “Really?”

“Really. Really and truly. Don’t you trust me, Sammy?”

“You said you didn’t trust anyone.”

“I didn’t mean any of us. I didn’t mean you. Would you leave me behind? Or James or
Maybeth?”

“No!”

“Well I wouldn’t leave you, either. I feel the same way.”

“But you were going to leave us behind,” Sammy said stubbornly. Dicey sighed.

They rose to find the ice cream store. James got a double-dip chocolate-nut cone,
explaining that nuts and chocolate were both rich and filling. Dicey got a scoop of
chocolate and a scoop of butter almond. She noticed a pile of maps of Annapolis on
the countertop and took one. Maybeth wanted pink sherbet and green, but Dicey told
her to get real ice cream because of the milk. She chose two scoops of strawberry.
Sammy asked for strawberry ripple ice cream topped with peanut butter ice cream. “Ugh,”
Dicey said, listening to his order. He grinned at her.

They sat at a small table to eat. The ice cream tasted rich and smooth and cold. You
could tell that it was made from real cream, it was that rich. Dicey studied her map
while her tongue made valleys in the ice cream and then smoothed them out. The cone
was crunchy and sweet.

“There’s a college,” Dicey said. “Let’s try that, okay?”

James had a single-dip cone for seconds, another scoop of chocolate-nut. They walked
out and onto the crowded sidewalk. What were all these people doing? It was like a
carnival.

The college lay in summer twilight, set back from the road by a
long, sloping lawn. It was brick and very old. Everything looked old about it, old
and tended, the smooth brick sidewalks, the many-paned windows, the little dome on
top of the main building. It had trees—huge, tall trees, with branches too high for
climbing—all about on its lawn. There were plenty of people. Students lay scattered
about, reading. Watchmen wandered around on the brick paths. Families were eating
picnic suppers. Children ran everywhere.

The Tillermans stood on the sidewalk, separated by a brier hedge from this scene.
“No good,” Dicey said. “Too many people.”

She did not move on, however. It looked—so quiet and solid; the air over it was lavender
in the evening light, and mysterious. She wished . . . she didn’t know what she wished.

Resolutely, she turned away.

Her map showed only something called the Historic District. They had walked through
some of it. All the houses crowded up onto the sidewalk, close to one another.

Dicey moved on. The suitcase weighed heavy on her shoulder muscle and banged against
her legs. The map showed the Naval Academy in one direction, closed in by a wall that
ran all around it. She turned the other way and led them back toward the first circle
they had seen. She chose the road leading to the hospital, and they walked on, past
that large building.

The houses were bigger here and had front lawns. A residential area. A rich residential
area.

She walked on.

They saw one vacant lot that had no cover to conceal them from the surrounding houses.

She walked on.

The air grew darker, gray-violet now. The heat did not abate. Sweat ran down her back.

She walked on.

On her left, she saw a long, narrow stretch of grass in the middle of a kind of courtyard
of houses. On both sides of the stretch ran roads, and houses stood facing one another
across the grass. At the end of this stretch, with all its many windows dark, stood
a house larger than any other on the street. Dicey headed down toward it.

They walked down the middle of the grass. There was one broad clump of bushes the
little kids could hide in, if it came to that.

When they stood before the large house, Dicey noticed oddly shaped piles. Old radiators
had been dropped here and pipes and slate shingles from the roof and even a bathroom
sink. They were piled up right by the front porch.

“Let’s go around back,” she said quietly. “I think it’s empty. It looks like somebody’s
fixing it up. If anybody calls out, don’t run. Tell them we’re looking for Prince
George Street. Tell them we’re lost. Don’t look guilty.”

Their feet silent on the unmown grass, they stepped around the side of the house.

A silver pool of water glimmered at the end of the long lawn. The back of the house
was as dark as the front, and Dicey breathed easy. She put her suitcase beside one
of the overgrown bushes that grew by the screened porch, and they all walked down
to the water.

A long-fingered willow swept the top of the grass at the water’s edge. Two towering
pines stood silent guard. On the silver pool, which was part of a river, some sailboats
floated.

There was a bulkhead at the end of the lawn made out of railroad ties. They sat on
that and dangled their feet over the water.

Dicey’s stomach had butterflies of excitement in it. “Remember that first house?”
she asked James.

“Yeah. Think it’s empty?”

“I think so. Let’s risk it.”

No other houses were visible, although patches of light from windows showed through
high hedges or trees. It was a private lawn.

“No fires,” Dicey said.

A sailboat, its sails down, motored up the river. It made little waves that streaked
the silver with black and lapped gently against the bulkheading.

Dicey turned to look at the house behind her. Its windows were comfortingly blank.

“We’ll have to be quiet and get out early,” she said.

Her family watched out over the water with dream-dazed eyes. They nodded. The river
was narrow enough to swim easily. Across it, houses looked back at them.

Dicey smiled. Sammy drummed at the wood with his heels, quietly. James lay back and
looked at the sky. Maybeth hummed, a tune Dicey half-recognized. “What song is that?”
she asked.

“Stewart’s song,” Maybeth said. “ ‘Oft I sing for my friends,’ ” she sang softly.
“Remember?”

Dicey shook her head. “We can’t sing—but I sure feel like it,” she said. “I don’t
really know why.”

“Yes, you do,” James said, but said no more. He was watching the first stars emerge
in the gray sky.

And Dicey did. They had money and a good place to sleep. She had a map. They were
together alone again, themselves again. The night air was warm, and the willow whispered
behind her, and the water whispered before her.

“Okay,” she said, rousing them, rousing herself. “Let’s go up and get to sleep.”

S
afe as she felt, Dicey woke early. She rolled over on her back. The lightening sky
arched over her. Behind her, the empty house stood like a protecting wall. From the
water came the cries of gulls. Their quarrels cut through the quiet slapping sound
ropes and rigging made against masts. Dicey stretched lazily and sat up.

James lay sprawled on his stomach, one arm flung out. Sammy had curled into a tight
ball. Maybeth lay on her back, her arms folded over her stomach.

To the east, the sky showed a lake of clear blue into which the sun would rise. It
was a particular blue, made of light and darkness mingling, clear as glass, smooth
as glass, as much like water as sky. Dicey stood up and went around the far corner
of the house to pee behind a large evergreen bush. She decided to let her family sleep
awhile longer. Even men eager to get started while the day was cool wouldn’t come
to work this early. Dicey returned to the bulkheading and sat.

The boats rocked at their moorings. The houses beside her and across the river from
her slept. Quiet as kittens, the water lapped at the boats and the bulkheads. In the
east, that first blue lake increased to an ocean. The sun rose.

The air shimmered in golden light. Water reflected and brightened the air. The masts
and spars of the boats stood stiff
and dark. The colors of the hulls became clear: whites, reds, yellows, greens and
one burnished mahogany.

Dicey walked back through the long grass. She called each of the sleepers by name.

“James?”

He stirred, rolled over, sat up, grinned. “Hey. Good morning. Is it late? I’m starving.”

“Maybeth?”

Maybeth’s eyes flew open. She lay still for a minute, staring blankly, remembering
herself.

Dicey crouched next to Sammy. She put her hand on his shoulder and jostled him gently
while calling his name. “Sammy. Sammy. Time to get up.”

He mumbled something and curled up more tightly.

“You’ve got to. Sammy?”

One eyelid struggled to open, then fell closed.

“Wake up, Sammy. We can’t stay here.”

He opened both eyes. “Okay,” he said. He closed both eyes.

“That’s right,” Dicey encouraged him. James grinned at her. “C’mon, Sammy—time to
get up. Gotta go to the bathroom and get out of here.”

He stumbled to his feet. He and James walked together to the bush, James holding Sammy’s
arm to keep the little boy from falling.

Dicey pulled her suitcase out from under the bush, opened it again and took out twenty
more dollars. She wondered how much money she had left. She could worry about that
later in the day. For now, she wanted breakfast and a phone book.

They returned to the circle with the church at its center and to the steep main street.
Once again Dicey was surprised to see the backdrop of water that lay at its foot.
Something was peculiar about the perspective here, she thought. It looked as if two
photographs of two different places had been jammed together. The town looked as though
it fell into the water.

Her eyes searched eastward, across the water. “I can see something,” she said. She
could see a distant looming of land, low and flat. “Do you think that’s the eastern
shore?”

“How should I know?” James asked. “Can we eat in a restaurant?”

“If one’s open. It’s pretty early.”

Early as it was, no more than half-past seven, the water was already dotted with white
sails. Everybody here must sail, Dicey thought. Everybody must have his own boat.
“Did you ever see so many boats?” she asked James, as they descended the main street.

He paid no attention to her. He was looking for a place to eat. They passed three
closed restaurants before they found one open. Its single narrow room wasn’t air-conditioned,
but the cool morning air came in through the open door and was moved around by big
ceiling fans. They sat down in a tiny booth.

Dicey read the prices before she read the menu. “Pancakes,” she said. “Maybeth, Sammy
and I can split an order. James, you can have one to yourself, if you’ll give me half
of a pancake. Is that okay? And milk.” James was too hungry to argue. Dicey realized
that they hadn’t had enough dinner the night before. She would have to be careful
about that.

The counter was filled with people drinking coffee and reading papers. The little
room hummed with activity as waitresses whisked about taking orders, bringing food.
When Dicey paid the bill, she asked the man at the cash register where an army-navy
surplus store was. He told her it was out beyond the bus station, and he took the
time to be sure she understood his directions, even though there was a line of people
behind her waiting to pay.

Fast and relaxed, that was what it was like in that restaurant.

It was that way out on the street, too. The temperature was climbing up, and the sky
was bleaching yellow with heat. People were entering the little stores that lined
the streets or standing in groups before the doors of the several banks. The working
day was about to begin. But almost all of these people turned, before they entered,
to look down the hill to the water and boats, and then up the hill to the church within
its ring of trees, as if they could take their own sweet time going in to work. Some
of them smiled at the Tillermans. Some wished them a good morning.

At the army-navy store, Dicey studied the shelves of goods before she made her purchases.
It was like a library in there, tall stacks of rods, shirts, hats, pants, shoes and
jackets, and tennis rackets and inflatable rafts lining the narrow aisles. Dicey picked
out a one-quart aluminum saucepan, four ponchos in children’s sizes, a packet of hooks
and the smallest, lightest reel of fishing line she could find. After some thought,
she chose a red canvas bookbag and went to the front of the store.

The jackknife she picked out of a glass-fronted case was the most expensive thing
she bought. It had two blades, one large and one small, a gadget to open cans with,
a little screwdriver and a file. The bill came to seventeen dollars all together,
seventeen dollars and twenty-four cents to be exact. Dicey sighed, but paid. She asked
the salesman to put everything into the canvas bag, except the jackknife. She slipped
the jackknife into her pocket. It felt heavy and good there.