Homecoming (8 page)

Dicey helped James make his slow, sliding way back down over the rocks. He leaned
against her as they walked back to the fire. She sat him down beside the little blaze
and examined the back of his head. “There’s no blood, but it’s swelling.” She pushed
the place. “Here.”

“Don’t, Dicey!” James cried. “That hurts!”

Maybeth brought James a T-shirt soaked in the cool water. Dicey wrapped that around
his head and told him to lie down. James said it felt better when he was sitting up
and he thought he might have a concussion. Dicey asked him what that was and he told
her the symptoms. “And I do have a headache,” he said hopefully.

“Bad?”

“Pretty bad, not terrible,” he said. “But if I fall asleep within about half an hour,
you better call an ambulance. The danger is lapsing into a coma.”

Sammy pushed through the shallow water to them, his hands
behind his back. “Look!” he called, holding out three small fish. “I told you. Is
something the matter with James?”

“I dunno,” Dicey answered. “He fell off those rocks.”

Sammy wasn’t interested. While James sat aside, silent, they roasted the fish as they
had the hot dogs and peeled off the hot meat with their fingers. James refused any.
“It makes me sick to look at them,” he said.

Dicey studied him while she chewed. He looked sort of bad. He was the one who knew
what the symptoms of concussion were, so he could fake it. But she couldn’t imagine
James faking nausea and missing a meal. Should she take him to a doctor? How could
she explain their situation to a doctor? How could she pay a doctor?

“Just as well you’re not hungry,” she commented. “There wouldn’t be enough to go around.”

James didn’t respond.

They cleaned up the bones and innards and tossed them into the water. Dicey praised
Sammy absentmindedly for catching the fish. Then they gathered up the sunbaked clothes
and shook the sand from them. “Let’s get back to the campsite,” Dicey said. “James
should be out of the sun. Don’t you think, James?” James nodded, but cut the movement
short, as if it hurt his head to move it.

Back at their camp they all sat around and stared at James. Dicey was pretty sure
more than a half-hour had passed. Sammy wandered around, tossing stones, hitting bushes
with sticks. “What can we do?” he finally demanded.

“Nothing,” Dicey said.

Sammy kicked at some stones. “Why not?”

“You could take them to the playground,” James told Dicey. “My headache’s not that
bad, if I don’t move. I’m not sleepy. If I could just sit quiet. You know?”

“Are you sure I can leave you alone?” Dicey asked. “What about concussions, how long
do they last?”

“You’re supposed to keep the patient quiet for a few days, until the headaches stop,”
James told her.

“So we can’t travel tomorrow,” Dicey said.

James started to shake his head, but winced.

“Or until you get better,” Dicey continued.

“That’s probably right,” James said. “I’m sorry.”

Dicey swallowed back her crossness and impatience. “It’s okay, I guess. I mean, it’ll
have to be, won’t it.”

She scratched with her finger in the dirt. How long would they have to stay? Days
and days?

“I’m sorry,” James repeated. “I’ll tell you when it stops, Dicey.”

“Okay,” she said. “Then we
will
go over to the playground. You won’t go wandering off, will you?”

“What do you think?” James asked. He was leaning back against a rock, his face still
pale.

“Then we’re off. First stop the bathrooms. James, don’t you have to go to the bathroom?”

“No,” he said. “All I want is some quiet.”

They cut through the woods rather than going down the road. Dicey picked up a long
stick and swung it at tree trunks, trying to work things out. They would have to stay
another day, at least. She would have to keep an eye on James too, to be sure he was
all right. But she wanted to get going tomorrow morning. She broke her stick against
a trunk and picked up another one. But she couldn’t get going because it wouldn’t
be safe for James.

The longer they stayed in a place, the greater their danger of being noticed.

As they emerged from the woods, Dicey saw the boy and the girl who had talked to her
on the beach. Louis and Edie. They
looked at her. “Remember,” she whispered to Sammy and Maybeth, “I’m Danny. Remember.”

“Yes, Dicey,” they said.

The boy and girl were even younger than they had seemed at night, maybe even sixteen.
Edie had long heavy brown hair and protruding brown eyes. Louis had wildly curling
brown hair and wore heavy-rimmed glasses, which he continually pushed up on his nose.
His teeth were crooked, which made him look friendly.

“Hi, Danny,” Edie called.

“Hi,” Dicey answered, approaching them. “Meet Maybeth and Sammy.”

“I want to swing,” Sammy said.

“First the bathrooms, then you can play.”

“You coming with me?” Sammy asked.

“Of course,” Dicey said, then remembered who she was, or, rather, who she wasn’t.
Sammy just grinned.

The men’s bathroom was like a girls’ except there were three urinals in a row, and
only one toilet. The toilet had no door on it. It wasn’t so bad. All the same, she
hurried and her heart was beating fast when she pulled the clumsy wooden door closed
behind her. Sammy was inside washing his hands and face, giggling, but Dicey didn’t
want to risk hanging around any longer than she had to.

Louis and Edie were standing around Maybeth when Dicey came out. She sent Maybeth
and Sammy over to the swings.

“Not exactly alone,” Louis said, facing Dicey.

“Not exactly.”

“And there’s another one,” Louis said. “Maybeth shook her head when I asked was this
all of you.”

Dicey nodded.

“He’s not with you now,” Louis observed.

Dicey sighed. “He had a fall so he’s resting.”

“Is he all right?” Edie sounded worried. “What happened?”

“He fell,” Dicey said. “He says he’s okay.”

“So—where you heading?” Louis asked.

“Up to Provincetown, on the Cape,” Dicey told him. “We used to have some family there.
It’s a neat place in summer.”

“Edie, want to go with them?” Louis asked. “It would be a good cover, in case your
old man has the cops out.”

Edie shook her head. She looked at Dicey with frightened eyes.

“Provincetown’s a good place, from all I’ve heard,” Louis went on. “Some jobs. Lots
of people. Cops don’t look too close.”

“You said we’d stay here until our money ran out,” Edie said.

“You scared?” Louis challenged her.

“You know I’m not. I proved it, didn’t I?”

“Sure. You got ahold of the money just fine. You can relax, Edie—Danny here isn’t
about to tell anybody anything. Are you, kid?”

Dicey just stared at him.

“It’s not as if she really robbed him,” Louis went on explaining. He was talking to
Dicey, but he was watching the effect of his words on Edie. “I mean,
I
wrote the checks. She just took the checkbook. Besides, the way I figure, I’m saving
him a lot of money—on her college education. So he should be grateful to me. Right,
Edie?”

“Sure.”

“So—whaddayou say? Want to travel with these kids?”

Edie shook her head. “I like it here,” she said.

“And if I decide I don’t?” Louis asked.

Edie looked up at him. Her eyes had tears in them. “Hey,” Louis said. He threw his
arm around her. “Hey, I’m just kidding. Can’t you take a joke?”

Dicey sidled away from them and went to the swings. Let it go
on being a joke, she thought. She didn’t know what to do if Louis and Edie tried to
go with them.

She couldn’t wait there long for worry about James, and for worry about when they’d
be able to get moving again. Sammy complained, but she hurried the two little ones
back to their campsite. James greeted them in his normal voice. His head, he said,
was better now. His appetite, he said, was huge—he’d missed lunch, after all. They
all went down to the little cove. James moved his body slowly and cautiously, as if
he was afraid it might break.

They gathered clams for dinner while James watched the fire. Dicey wrapped the potatoes
in seaweed, too, and baked them in the fire. They had brought the milk carton down
with them. They picnicked in tired solitude, eating as much as they wanted. Behind
them, the sun went quietly down. Twilight crept over the water toward them, dainty
as a mouse.

D
icey awoke to the beginning of a bright day. She lay still for a long time, looking
at the cloudless sky through the branches and leaves of green maples and sycamores.
The leaves made designs on the background of the sky, intricate patterns that shifted
with any slightest breeze. She heard James stir and rolled over on her side to watch
him.

James’s eyes opened. He yawned and stretched. Dicey waited for him to say what he
always said first thing, about it still being true. Then everything would be back
to normal.

He caught her eye. “I wish I’d seen you going into the boys’ bathroom,” he said. “I
thought I’d split when Sammy told me.”

“I noticed,” Dicey said. “How’s your head?”

James rolled it back and forth. “Almost okay,” he said.

“What do you mean, almost? Does it hurt?”

James thought. “It feels tender. As if it could hurt. It doesn’t exactly
hurt
, but it feels like it will.”

Dicey sat up. “We can’t go until James is better,” she said sternly to herself, “that’s
the most important thing.” So, they’d have to wait another day.

They had only apples left in their food supply, and Dicey wanted to save them, in
case. So they went down to the little beach, leaving James behind. Three or four families
already crowded the beach, and the Tillermans had to eat the apples for breakfast
after all.

“It’s a weekend,” James explained. “That means a lot of people around, especially
on the beaches, I bet.”

“But what’ll we do?” Dicey asked him. She answered herself. “We’ll try fishing in
the marsh. You’ll have to stay here alone,” she cautioned James.

“Danny?” a voice called from the road. “Is that you?” It was Edie, and Dicey stood
up to show the girl where they were. Louis was with her. They had come, they said,
to see how the third brother was and to warn the children that it was a weekend, so
lots of people would be in the park.

Edie was carrying something bulky, an instrument. She sat down beside James and played
on it a little, leaning it back against her shoulder. The sound was part banjo, part
harp. “You like that?” she asked James.

“What is it?”

“An autoharp. Here,” she said, and sang a song for them about a girl who wanted to
follow her boyfriend to war.

“I like that,” Maybeth said, when Edie finished.

“I do too, honey,” Edie said. “Do you know any songs you’d like me to sing?”

Maybeth shook her head.

Dicey looked at Edie over James’s head and asked, “Do you know Pretty Peggy-O?”

“Sure,” Edie said. She bent her head over the autoharp and her long hair fell down
like a curtain. She strummed a couple of chords, then raised her face. But this wasn’t
their song. This song was about William the false lover and how he tricked pretty
Peggy-O into running away with him but then murdered her. Edie sang the song quick
and cruel, with sharp metallic sounds from her instrument.

“You’re a good singer,” James said.

“I thought we were going,” Sammy said.

“Going where?” Edie asked.

“Fishing,” Dicey told her.

“Do you have the hook and line?” James asked. Dicey nodded. “And worms?” She hadn’t
thought of bait. Count on James to think things through, Dicey thought, and forgave
him for his lack of persistence the day before and for being careless and falling.

“Shall we stay with James?” Edie asked. Dicey didn’t object.

When they had gotten out of earshot of the campsite, Sammy said he wasn’t going fishing
with them, he was going to the playground. He didn’t want to walk anymore, ever. He
didn’t want to explore. He wouldn’t get into any trouble. He didn’t mind being left
alone. And he would not go with them, no matter what Dicey said or did.

Dicey decided she could probably leave him safely at the playground. She instructed
him to go back to the campsite if he got bored, not to go wandering about. “And don’t
talk to anyone.”

“Why not?” Sammy demanded.

“Well, you know, don’t talk about us.”

“I wouldn’t do that. I’m not stupid.”

Maybeth and Dicey crossed the dirt road from the playground and found the path to
the small campground. Another path led to a bluff overlooking the marshes. They walked
without speaking through the warm morning. The only sounds were the rustling of the
leaves above them and the rustling of their feet on the leafy ground. They emerged
from the woods on top of a low bluff that marked the border of the marshlands. Below,
the heavy grasses swayed. Narrow canals of water moved gently. The scene could have
been painted in watercolors, so pale was the green of the grass, so subdued was the
blue of the water.

They climbed down a short path and stood on the muddy ground of the lowlands. A heron
looked up at them, curious but
not afraid, before he flew to a more secluded spot. Clusters of gnats hovered in the
air.

“It’s so quiet,” Dicey said. Maybeth nodded. “Think there are any fish?” Dicey asked,
feeling her hunger. Maybeth didn’t answer. Dicey walked out along the mudflat until
she found a spot she liked. There she baited the hook with a worm from her pocket,
put it into the water, and waited.

Maybeth sat beside her, braiding sea grass into long and useless lines. Dicey caught
a fish almost right away, six or seven inches long. She rebaited the hook and caught
another, even larger. She couldn’t believe her luck. Every few minutes she could feel
the tentative, jerking nibble on the end of her line.

When she had enough, Dicey took off her shirt and piled her catch into it. As long
as they could fish, they wouldn’t go hungry. She smiled at Maybeth. “Let’s go back
and eat,” she said. It would be okay. They could wait for James to get well.