Homecoming (3 page)

At last James stirred, and his eyes opened. All four of them had the same hazel eyes,
although Dicey and James had their father’s dark hair, not the yellow hair their mother
had passed on to Maybeth and Sammy.

James’s hazel eyes looked at Dicey for a minute before he spoke. “It’s still true.”
His voice was hollow and sad. Their momma was really gone.

Dicey nodded. Sammy surged over from the backseat. “I gotta go to the bathroom. Bad.”

Dicey turned her head and a muscle protested all the way down her back. “Maybeth?
You awake?”

Maybeth was awake.

“Okay, then. Let’s take our clothes bags and change. And the
food bag too, if you’d like to eat breakfast outside.” Dicey took the map of Connecticut
and jammed it into her clothes bag.

It was Sunday and nothing moved in the parking lot, the same few cars stood empty.
The air was clear, clean, lucid, lying lightly upon the world that morning. The children
scrambled out of the car and Dicey led them across the highway to the woodsy patch
where she had hidden the night before. She led them into the thickest clustering of
trees, then they separated to go to the bathroom.

They ate the last peanut butter sandwiches sitting on a low stone wall, listening
to a few birds and watching the sunlight fall in bright, moving patterns onto the
leafy floor of the woods. The air grew warmer.

Dicey finished her sandwich and crumpled the wax paper up. She tossed it into the
food bag. Then she stripped down to her underpants and put on a pair of cutoff jeans
and a T-shirt. She also put on a pair of socks. The others changed too. Dicey insisted
that they wear socks.

“Why?” James asked. “It’s hotter with socks on.”

“If we’re going to walk they’ll keep us from getting blisters.”

“Is that true?” James demanded. “I never had a blister.”

“Of course, it’s true,” Dicey answered. “Now let me look at the map and think, all
of you.”

The little ones explored the little patch of woods while Dicey studied the map. Route
1 was the road they’d been driving on. They could follow it for a while, then they’d
have to go on the Turnpike to get over the Thames River, to New London. After that,
they’d have to switch to a road that followed the coastline, because Route 1 turned
into the Turnpike for a long while. There was the Connecticut River to cross, then
Route 1 again, or maybe they could take a coastal road, to New Haven. After New Haven,
the map showed a yellow patch connecting the
cities, all the way down to Bridgeport. That meant heavily populated areas. But Route
1 ran the whole distance.

Dicey looked at the map. Maybe two or three days, she judged. They had about seven
dollars, so they could spend about two dollars a day on food. Half what they’d spent
on one meal yesterday. But that was okay, because you didn’t starve in two or three
days. You could get awfully hungry, but you wouldn’t starve.

“James?” she called. “Maybeth. Sammy. Come here now.”

They ran up and sat in a circle around the map. Dicey showed them where Bridgeport
was and about where they were. Then she made her announcement: “We’re going to walk
down to Bridgeport.” The idea was so factual in her mind that she was unprepared for
questions.

“What about Momma?” Sammy asked.

“I don’t know where she’s got to,” Dicey said.

“We can wait for her here,” Sammy said. His mouth puckered up.

“No we can’t,” Dicey said, and she told them about the guard. “Momma will know we
went on to Aunt Cilla’s,” Dicey said. Sammy’s mouth set in a firm line. “We can’t
go back,” Dicey said, “and we’ve got to go somewhere.”

“That’s all right,” James spoke, “but why don’t we take the bus?”

“Because we don’t have enough money. Each ticket is two forty-five. That makes nine
dollars and eighty cents all together and we’ve only got seven dollars.”

“If we hadn’t had supper last night,” James said.

Dicey had already been over that in her own mind. “But we did,” she cut him off. “So
it’s no good thinking, if we didn’t. We’re going to have to walk. Maybeth?”

Maybeth looked up from a pile of stones she was making into a long circle around herself.
“That’s fine, Dicey,” she said. No
questions, no worries in her round hazel eyes, just
that’s fine.
Dicey felt like hugging her.

“How far is it?” James asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” Dicey said.

“How far can we walk in a day?” James asked.

“There’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Dicey asked. Only Sammy didn’t smile
in return.

“It’ll be hard,” she added. “We have to carry as little as possible. Just one bag
for all of us.”

They sorted through their bags. Sammy refused to speak or help, just sat cross-legged
with his jaw set, picking at the dirt with his finger. Dicey took out two changes
of underwear and two clean shirts for each, then she added a pair of extra socks and
one comb. Toothbrushes they could get at Aunt Cilla’s. There was about half a bag
full when she was through. It felt light enough in the cool morning, but she knew
that it would get heavier as the day went on. She inhaled the sun-sweetened air and
looked around her.

“I’m not going,” Sammy said. He glared up at Dicey.

“What’ll you do?” James asked him, perfectly reasonably.

“Wait here for Momma. Not here exactly, in the car.”

“Sammy, you’ve got to come with us,” Dicey said. “First we’re going to stash these
other three bags in the car, then we start walking. So get up.”

Sammy shook his head.

“Don’t you understand?” Dicey asked. “Momma’s not coming back, not here.”

Sammy didn’t answer her. Sammy’s stubbornness was beyond measure. When he made his
mind up, there was nothing you could do to move him. Threats didn’t work. He didn’t
mind being spanked or slapped. Explaining was no good; it was as if he didn’t even
hear what you were saying to him. Even Momma
couldn’t bully him into doing something. Even James couldn’t trick him into it.

But you couldn’t go off and leave a six-year-old alone, in the woods, in a strange
place.

Dicey crouched down beside him. The other two stood silent behind her. “Sammy? Momma’s
not coming back here. That’s what I think. I think she’s forgotten.”

“Momma wouldn’t forget me.”

“No, she wouldn’t. But she’s forgotten where we are, I think. So if we go to Aunt
Cilla’s that’s where she’ll probably be. We have to go find her.”

“I don’t want to,” Sammy said. But he was thinking about what she’d said.

“I don’t want to, either,” Dicey said. “But we have to.”

“No, we don’t,” Sammy said.

Dicey stood up in frustration and stamped her foot on the ground. “Then I’ll carry
you,” she announced.

“I’ll kick you.” He stood up.

Maybeth stepped forward. “No, you won’t,” she said to Sammy. “Momma said to do as
Dicey tells us. You heard her.”

The two stared at one another. They were both sturdy little blond figures, with round
bellies. Sammy shorter than Maybeth, but almost as heavy.

“Please, Sammy,” Maybeth said.

“Okay,” Sammy said.

At the edge of the woods, where the grassy roadside banked above the macadam, they
stopped to wait for an opening in the traffic. It was Sunday morning. People were
driving to church, or to the beach. The children could look back and see their own
car, green and lonely, in the middle of the parking lot.

It was kind of like a home, the car, Dicey thought. She understood why Sammy wanted
to stay there.

They crossed the road, but stopped at the edge of the parking lot. A blue police car
was driving around the lot. It stopped by their car. A policeman got out and opened
the door. He stuck his head in. He opened the glove compartment and went through the
maps, as if he was looking for something. He walked all around the car. He wrote something
down in a little notebook. Then he looked toward the mall.

“Walk.” Dicey gave the order. She took Sammy’s hand. “Don’t anybody look at our car.”

They walked on, away from the mall and the parking lot and the car. Dicey led them
back to Route 1. There they turned south. They dumped the three grocery bags in the
first trash can they saw. Nobody said a word.

Route 1 was mostly garages and small shopping centers and discount stores and quick
food places. There were no green patches and few sidewalks. They walked along concrete
or asphalt, or on roadside gravel. Soon their feet hurt. Dicey walked at half her
normal speed, because of Sammy’s short legs. Trucks roared by and the sun grew hotter.
The air smelled of oil and gas and nothing else. After an hour and a half, Sammy began
to complain. It was the first time any of them had spoken.

At the next McDonald’s that had outside tables, Dicey let them sit down. One at a
time, they went inside to the bathroom. They had to go through a room that smelled
of hamburgers and french fries, and they all became aware of how hungry they were.
Dicey ordered two large Cokes, which they all four shared.

That refreshed them. Sitting still also refreshed them.

“How much longer is it?” Sammy asked.

“A long way,” Dicey said. “We’ll have to sleep outside tonight.”

“Good-o,” Sammy said. “Can we have a fire?”

“I don’t know. It depends on where we get to. This road is awful.”

“That’s for sure,” James agreed. “Dicey? When do we get lunch?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she answered. “If we walk for a while, then rest a little, that’s
the best way. So we’ll walk another hour or so and I’ll go into a supermarket. We
should have fruit every day, and maybe some doughnuts and milk. I’ll see what they
have. We’ve got to make our money last.”

It was hard to start off again. Sammy lagged back on Dicey’s hand and she snapped
at him time and again to keep up. He didn’t like being snapped at, so he pulled back
a little more, while pretending to be hurrying as fast as he could. Dicey turned her
head and saw Maybeth and James trudging along. Traffic passed them, roaring and honking.
They passed building after building, and an occasional vacant stretch where wispy
trees looked like weeds grown up. Dicey’s fingers cramped from holding on to the bag,
so she moved it under her armpit, holding it by a hand across the base.

The minutes stretched out. Dicey checked the time at every garage they passed. At
noon, she began looking for a place to buy lunch, and at the next shopping center
they turned off the highway and walked to the front of a supermarket that was open
for business on Sundays. Dicey left the little ones with James, sitting on a curb
off around to one side, and entered the market alone.

The electric eye door swung open before her. Dicey headed for the produce aisle, not
even bothering to take a cart. If she could spend just fifty cents for lunch, they’d
have a dollar fifty for dinner. She picked out four apples, then searched for the
kind of rack they have in every supermarket, a place where they offered items that
were damaged or old. She found it back by the meat department. She stood before it
a minute, selecting a box of doughnuts at half price. That would be three doughnuts
and an apple apiece.

It cost eighty-eight cents.

They ate sitting on the curb, with the sun hot overhead. Sammy couldn’t eat his third
doughnut but he didn’t want to give it away, so Dicey put it into their bag. They
trooped by pairs into the market, first James and Sammy, then Dicey and Maybeth, to
drink water from the fountain and use the toilets. The pair waiting outside watched
the bag while the other pair was inside.

“Now we rest,” Dicey said.

“How much longer is it?” asked Sammy.

“I told you. More than today.”

“Where are we going to camp?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you when we get there,” she said.

“I haven’t seen any place that looks good for sleeping,” James said.

“I figure we’ll have to get off this road to find something, otherwise the cars would
keep us awake. I figure we’ll turn off the road and see what we find. There was that
woods this morning. That would have been all right. So there are bound to be others.
Don’t you think?”

“Walking is no fun,” Sammy said.

“Think about the soldiers who had to march everywhere,” Dicey said.

“We could pretend to be soldiers,” James said. His eyes lit up. “You could be the
general and I could be the major, and Sammy and Maybeth could be the army. And we
could sing songs while we walk, so it would be like marching, and maybe give drill
orders. We could be Revolutionary soldiers, going to Concord.”

Dicey didn’t say that wouldn’t make any difference, they’d still be walking. She agreed
to go along with it.

“Everybody who talks to you has to say sir.” James elaborated the plan. “And you two
have to say sir to me. We should have a drum.”

When they set off again, they sang a song about marching to Pretoria and pretty Peggy-O
running down the stairs, letting down her golden hair. It was a song Momma sang. It
even had a line in it, “What will your momma think,” because in the song Pretty Peggy-O
ran away with the captain.

The afternoon wore on, wore away. Each rest period got longer, each walking period
got shorter. At midafternoon they lay back in an overgrown lot next to two tiny houses,
the only houses they’d seen that afternoon.

“I wouldn’t want to live on this road, would you?” Dicey said, to nobody in particular.

“I bet it wasn’t always like this,” James answered. “It might have been a nice road
once. A country road. And these people might be old people, or poor people, who can’t
afford to move. Like us.”

“Yeah, but our house was out in the dunes. We had the ocean. Our house was nicer than
the ones other people wanted.”

“The bathtub was in the kitchen,” James reminded her. “It was small, even smaller
than these houses.”

“So what?”

“Nobody else would have lived in it. Only us. Some of the kids said their parents
thought it should be torn down.”