Homecoming (37 page)

Ahead, Dicey saw open water. The bay lay at the farm’s edge.

The path led up to a dock built of weathered gray wood. At the end of it was tied
a long open boat. It had an outboard motor and four seats. It was at least fifteen
feet long and painted a bright red, inside and out. The boat looked taken care of
too.

Dicey jumped in and sat on the center bench. Her grandmother untied the painter, pulled
the boat around until its stern was near the dock and jumped in herself, dropping
the line into Dicey’s lap.

“Coil that,” she said, and turned to the motor.

She pulled once on the starter, the motor hummed, and she headed the boat out into
the bay.

They couldn’t have talked over the noise of the motor without screaming at one another,
so Dicey didn’t try. She sat with her back to her grandmother and watched the prow
of the little boat cut through the quiet water. She felt the fine spray the boat threw
back, inhaled the salty air, and looked out to a horizon made only of sky and water.

They followed the coastline, which was mostly marshes. Dicey saw few houses. Then
they came into Crisfield harbor, which was hidden behind a point of land. Shacks,
bleached white by sunlight, leaned against one another. Piles of oyster shells made
small pointed hills beside the shacks and behind them and in front of them.

Dicey turned around and leaned toward her grandmother. “They’re on the farthest dock
over,” she called.

Her grandmother nodded and yelled something back. Dicey couldn’t hear her. They didn’t
speak again.

They chugged into the dock, tying up at the far end. Dicey scrambled out and hoisted
herself up onto the boards. Her grandmother climbed up the wooden ladder.

The dock was empty. There was no shade on it at this time of day, so not even the
old men remained.

At first, as her eyes searched for her family, Dicey didn’t worry about the dock being
empty. Then she did.

Where were they? She’d told them to stay there. Where were they? What had happened?
Her eyes searched up the street to see three small figures.

Nobody moved on the sidewalks.

They were gone.

Dicey felt cold, despite the heat of sunlight reflected off water. It was not the
gentle breeze that cooled her. It was fear that froze.

Not thinking, not caring whether her grandmother wanted to help at all, Dicey turned
to her. “I don’t know,” she said. “You go up that side. Look in stores and restaurants.
I’ll go up this side.”

Dicey didn’t wait to see if her grandmother started off. She ran, her heart pounding
painfully.

As she reached the end of the dock, she heard her name called. She swiveled around
and saw Sammy running toward her from the shade behind one of the shacks across the
harbor.

Dicey’s grandmother was right behind her. “It’s okay,” Dicey said. “That’s Sammy.”

She was so relieved to see him that she ran across the crushed oyster shells to meet
him and caught at his hand. He let her hold it briefly, then pulled away. “I told
James,” he said proudly.

They walked back together.

“Told him what?” Dicey asked. “I didn’t know where you were. I’ll tell you, I was
scared.”

Sammy ignored that. “Told him you’d be back.”

“Where is he? Where’s Maybeth?”

“They walked out to the farm. James said we should have all gone together anyway.
He said you were wrong about that. We waited and waited. Then he said it was time
to go. And I said no. And he said he’d thought it all over, and there was no good
reason for you to go alone. He said I had to do what he said. And I said no. He said
you said to. And I said you said to stay here and do what he said, not go off because
he said to. So he took Maybeth.”

By this time, they were back to where their grandmother waited. She listened, watching
Sammy, watching Dicey.

“Sometimes I get so mad at James,” Dicey said to Sammy. “But I’m glad you stayed—how
would I have known where they were? He thinks he’s so smart”—she turned to her grandmother—“and
he is smart—but I told them to stay here. I told him.” She scuffed her foot in the
shells. How was she going to catch up with James and Maybeth? What should she do now?

“Are you the grandmother?” Sammy asked.

Their grandmother nodded.

“What am I s’posed to call you?” Sammy asked.

Dicey hadn’t even thought of this. Neither, apparently, had their grandmother. She
didn’t answer Sammy. She pretended she hadn’t heard him. “Let’s get back,” she said.

“What about James and Maybeth?” Dicey asked. “I can’t just leave them.”

“You already did,” her grandmother said. “They’ll make their own way. It’s what James
wanted, isn’t it? He’ll find you.”

She headed back down the dock to the boat.

Dicey followed. When they got back, if James and Maybeth weren’t there, she’d walk
back toward town. James wouldn’t get
lost. He’d listened to the directions, so he’d be on the right road. He didn’t forget
things.

Sammy jumped down into the boat and climbed to the most forward seat. Dicey sat in
the middle again, facing her brother. Behind her, she heard her grandmother untie
the line and lower herself carefully from the ladder to the boat. “Hold on to the
dock, girl,” she said to Dicey.

Dicey stood up and reached out for a firm grip on the wood. As soon as the motor started
she pushed the boat away from the dock. Sammy leaned to her. “Where is it?”

Dicey pointed south. “A ways off,” she said.

“What’s it like?” he asked.

“Run down.”

“Are we going to stay?”

Dicey shook her head firmly. “Just tonight.”

“That’s okay, Dicey,” Sammy said.

They were silent the rest of the way back to their grandmother’s dock. The two children
climbed out there. Dicey took the line and tied it around one post. Then she sat on
the edge of the dock and held the boat steady with her feet while her grandmother
lifted the motor up and rocked it into a resting position inside the boat. The metal
propeller blades dripped water into the bay, like sullen raindrops.

Their grandmother led the way back to the fields and farm. Sammy walked behind her
on the narrow path. Dicey came last, looking around over the waving fields of grasses,
savoring the salty, muddy air.

When they got past the fields, Dicey broke into a run. She sprinted around to the
front of the house, hoping to see James’s skinny figure sitting on the steps, with
Maybeth quiet beside him. They weren’t there. Sammy had followed her. Their grandmother
had not.

“I’m going to find them,” Dicey said. “Do you want to come or stay?”

“Stay,” he said.

“She’s not friendly,” Dicey warned him.

“Neither am I,” he said. “Besides, I’ll stay out here. James’ll be all right, Dicey.”

“I hope so,” she said. She loped down the long driveway without looking back.

As Dicey emerged from the pine woods, she saw the two figures standing far off, across
the road by the mailbox. The brown grocery bag was on the ground between them. Dicey
raised her hand in greeting and slowed to a walk.

James picked up the bag. Dicey stopped. Let them come to her. She had a few things
to say to James.

His narrow face looked worried and relieved and ashamed and glad, all at once. He
was too smart not to know all the things that could have happened. “Sammy’s alone
downtown,” James said, before he said anything else. “I’ll go back and get him. If
everything’s okay?”

Dicey forgave him, without a word, without another thought. “Everything’s not okay,
but Sammy’s here. She doesn’t have a car, she uses a boat. That wasn’t very smart,
James.”

“I thought it was, when I started out.”

“Well, don’t worry. She doesn’t want us to stay, but we can sleep here tonight.”

“Then what?”

“I dunno. Let me think about it. Why didn’t you come in? Were you there long?”

“We couldn’t see any house,” Maybeth said. “We didn’t know what it would be like.”

They walked back together. As they came up to the house, Sammy called to them from
up among the leaves of the big
tree. “I was right, James, wasn’t I? We went in a boat.”

“How’d you get up there?” James asked.

Sammy descended, with a shivering of branches. He slid down the curve of one trunk
and stopped himself just at the bottom, where all four trunks came together. His legs
were scratched.

The Tillermans stood together at the base of the tree. The house was before them,
overgrown with honeysuckle, dark-windowed, looking abandoned. Off to the right, Dicey
saw the lopsided barn. It had once been red, but the paint had weathered, faded and
peeled, until it looked pink as a bad sunburn. The tin roof was rusted in large patches.

“Anyway,” Dicey said, “this is where Momma lived.”

“It’s beautiful,” Maybeth said.

“It’s a wreck,” Dicey answered. “The fields out front—and look at that barn. It’s
gone to ruin. She hasn’t taken care of it.”

“But it’s big,” James said. “Big enough for all of us. Is it near the water?”

“There’s a marsh first,” Dicey said, “a long, empty marsh. Then the bay. There’s a
path, but the water’s at least a quarter of a mile away. Not like Provincetown. Anyway,
who cares? We won’t be staying.”

“True enough,” her grandmother said from the side of the house. “But you’ll be here
for supper so there’s work to be done. I see you found them.” She stared at James.
“James,” she said.

He tried to smile but her face discouraged him.

Her eyes flickered over Maybeth. “And Maybeth.” She looked away quickly, as if nothing
about Maybeth could interest her. The little girl moved closer to Dicey.

“I’ve got crab pots set down by the dock,” their grandmother said. “Who’ll fetch the
crabs?”

“I will,” Dicey said.

“Me too,” Sammy said.

“James and Sammy will,” their grandmother announced. “It’s after four. I eat early,
and so will you. I put a basket by the back steps.”

The two boys ran off.

“You two come with me. I’ll show you where to sleep.”

She strode around to the back of the house. Dicey picked up the grocery bag and followed
her. Maybeth clung to Dicey’s hand.

They saw James and Sammy heading off down the path to the water. James carried a bushel
basket by its two metal handles.

Their grandmother led them through the kitchen and into a dim hallway. “That’s my
room,” she said, pointing at a closed door, “and my bathroom,” pointing to the closed
door next to it. They turned left down the hall and ascended a narrow staircase.

Upstairs, they saw a long, U-shaped hallway with five closed doors around it. A window
at one end looked out over the front yard, through the leaves of the big tree. Their
grandmother stood on the top step and let them go past her. “That’s the bathroom at
the far end. Sheets are in one of the bureaus. I can’t recollect which.”

Dicey went to look out the window. “What kind of tree is that?”

“Paper mulberry,” her grandmother answered.

Dicey noticed from above what could not be seen from below. There were strong twisted
wires running around the tree. “Why is it wired?” she asked.

“Because paper mulberries are fragile,” her grandmother answered. “It’s the way they
spread out at the top, it’s the way they grow. If you didn’t brace it, the weight
of the leaves and the growing branches would pull the tree apart. Like families.”
She went abruptly downstairs.

Dicey and Maybeth stood in the dim hallway. “Cripes,” Dicey whispered. “It’s like
a ghost house.”

The air was warm and old, as if the same air had been up here for hundreds of years.
The closed doors looked like so many secrets.

Maybeth’s eyes were round and frightened.

“Look at it this way, Maybeth, it’s only for one night. And besides, this was Momma’s
house, when she was little. Isn’t that right?”

That didn’t make Maybeth feel any better, but it made Dicey feel better. She forced
up the old window to let in fresh air. She braced it with a piece of wood lying on
the sill. Their grandmother wasn’t going to take any trouble for them, but Dicey would
show her.

Dicey opened the nearest door and stepped boldly into the room. This was a bedroom
with a plain iron bedstead overlaid with a thin white quilt. The pillow had no cover
on it. The room held a dresser, a desk and chair and a wardrobe, all of plain wood.
Dicey went to a window and snapped up the shade. This room faced the big tree. She
snapped up a shade on the other wall and found a window that looked out to the barn.
Between them, she and Maybeth got the four windows up, and braced them with pieces
of wood. Fresh air filtered around the room and light came in.

The smaller room across the hall was almost identical, except the quilt was faded
blue instead of white. On the front of the wardrobe somebody had painted a picture
of Indians coming out of the woods, carrying bows and arrows, wearing warpaint and
bright headdresses. It was a kid’s painting with blobs of green paint for leaves and
the sun a yellow circle with lines coming out. Dicey liked it. They opened this room
too and returned to the hall. With two doors open and the sunlight and the clean air,
the upstairs seemed more friendly. Dicey walked down the wooden floor to the opposite
end.

First she opened the door opposite the hall window. This was a bathroom. It had a
toilet with a wooden seat and a wooden box above the seat from which hung a long,
wooden-handled chain. The bathtub was raised off the floor by four stubby legs that
ended at four feet with claws on them. The sink stood on a tall pedestal. Above it
was a shelf where you could put soap and toothpaste.

Dicey and Maybeth both went to the bathroom. They pulled on the chain to flush. When
you flushed, you could hear the water gurgling down the pipes from the overhead box.

Then Dicey opened the window and looked out.

From this window you looked over the roof of the porch, over the backyard, over the
planted fields, over the long stretch of marshes—to the water. The band of water lay
blue and sparkling, out and away. A boat, tiny at this distance, moved up the bay,
maybe heading back to Crisfield with its day’s catch.