Homecoming

  Father Joseph greeted her. “Sit down, Dicey, we have to get to business now. That’s an odd name, Dicey. What is your real name?”

  Dicey sat cross-legged on the floor, between the two in their chairs, looking up at them. “Dicey’s my name,” she said. “I don’t have another one.”

  “You just don’t know it,” the priest assured her. Dicey didn’t argue. After all, maybe he was right.

  He studied her, as if he wanted to see her thoughts. He made her uncomfortable.

  “Your cousin has agreed to make you welcome here, until we can make inquiries about your mother, and your father.”

  Dicey looked at Cousin Eunice, who smiled foolishly at her and said, “It must be temporary, I’m afraid, but—”

  “Your cousin has—certain plans, of which she may tell you later,” Father Joseph said. He smiled at Cousin Eunice across the top of Dicey’s head, and she blushed like a little girl. “However, the Church has summer activities in which your younger siblings can participate. A day camp for the little boy and the young girl. James will attend a school-camp. Will he object to that?”

  “He likes school,” Dicey said. “He’s awfully smart.”

  “I thought so,” Father Joseph said. “I’m one of the teachers there, so I can see that he gets into the proper classes. And of course there will be more active things to do in the afternoon.”

  “That sounds fine,” Dicey said. “Thank you. Thank you both. I know we’ve just sort of fallen on you,” she said to Cousin Eunice. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, don’t be sorry,” Cousin Eunice said, leaning forward, pushing her glasses back up her nose. “We are family, aren’t we? And when I think of you, all alone—abandoned—like myself really, in a way. Why, I couldn’t do anything else, could I? Only, I work, you see, so I have to be gone all day, and there will be so much to do with four children in the house. Cleaning and shopping, laundry.”

  “But I can do that, can’t I?” Dicey asked her.

  “That is what we hoped,” Father Joseph said. “And the Church, Eunice, can give you clothing, as well as all the support we can offer, and counsel. Have the children no other relatives?”

  “None that I know of,” Dicey said. She knew she had interrupted, but she didn’t like him talking about them as if she weren’t there.

  “Mother had just one sister,” Cousin Eunice said. “Abigail. She would be their grandmother. But I don’t know much about her. She was much younger than Mother, twelve years, and then they never were close. I’ve never met her. They might have had a falling out. I did write to her when Mother passed away, but I received no answer.”

  “Was the letter returned to you?”

  “No.”

  “So it must have been received. By someone.”

  Dicey was listening hard.

  Cousin Eunice waved her little hands. “Let me see. Abigail married a man named John Tillerman.”

  “Where does she live?” Father Joseph asked.

  “In Maryland, down south, on the Eastern Shore. A town called Crisfield. I don’t know anything about it. It is where Mother lived as a girl.”

  Father Joseph nodded.

  “This John Tillerman farmed, I think I remember.” Cousin Eunice wrinkled her brows with the effort. “They had children.” Dicey nodded her head. “I don’t know how many, but one daughter would be Dicey’s mother. I don’t know where they are now.”

  Crisfield, Eastern Shore, Maryland, Dicey said to herself, to fix it in her memory.

  “By that time, Mother had been in the north for years and married to Father, and they lived here. Mother didn’t like her sister. She didn’t like to be reminded of her family. I don’t know—she wouldn’t speak of them. She became a part of Father’s family. These are the first Hackett relations I’ve met. I’ll try to remember more, Father Joseph. We have photograph albums.”

  “That would be most helpful. I myself will see what I can find out about the Tillerman family. Sometimes the Church can make the more sensitive personal inquiries, that the police authorities can’t.” He turned to Dicey. “What is your religion?”

  “I don’t know,” Dicey said. “We never went to church.” He frowned slightly.

  “There is another question that I’m afraid I have to ask. The matter of your name. Tillerman. That would be your mother’s name. Your parents were not married?”

  Dicey shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. Cousin Eunice sucked in a noisy breath. Dicey did not look at her. She pulled at the laces of her sneakers, as if she had just noticed they were coming loose.

  “Had you the same father, all of you? Would you know that?”

  “Yes,” Dicey said. Her head snapped up and her eyes met his. He did not seem surprised at her anger. “Sammy and Maybeth look like Momma, but James and me, we look like our father. I remember him, a little. Because I’m the oldest.”

  “Yes, yes,” the priest said, smiling a little. “I’m sure you’re right.” He didn’t sound sure.

  “No, you’re not,” Dicey said, “but I am. And I know. Aren’t there birth certificates? There have to be, don’t there? We were all born in Provincetown—why don’t you call the hospital there? They’ll tell you. Momma wasn’t—” She couldn’t find the polite word. “She didn’t have boyfriends, she didn’t even go out on dates. She’s nice. She’s good. She loves us—and you probably don’t believe that either, but she does. We’d know and you wouldn’t.”

  He held up his hands. A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. Cousin Eunice fluttered in the background making little protests to tell Dicey she shouldn’t talk like that to a priest.

  “No, no, Eunice. The child is probably right. She would know better than we.”

  “Then why did she abandon them?” Eunice asked. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that,” she apologized to Dicey. Dicey didn’t respond.

  “That is what we’ll try to find out,” Father Joseph said. “I think, Dicey, if you can, I’d like you to speak to the Missing Persons Department.”

  “The police?” Dicey asked.

  “The police.”

  Dicey thought. She didn’t want to talk to the police. But how else could they find where Momma went? And what if something bad had happened to Momma and the police could help her? And if by not talking to them Dicey could hurt her? She had a sudden memory of Momma’s sad moon-face and her sad moon smile in the car window; and then of Momma running to comfort Sammy when he had fallen off a chair and was frightened, pulling the little boy onto her knees and wrapping her arms around him, saying crooning comforting things. The two round yellow heads bent toward each other, and Momma’s strong hands cradled the back of Sammy’s little head.

  “Okay,” Dicey said. “They can’t put us into foster homes when we’re here with Cousin Eunice, can they? We’re not runaways, are we? I don’t want us to be separated,” she explained to the priest.

  “Neither do we, if it can be helped,” he answered. “I’ll contact the police and someone will come here to see you. Shall I come with him?”

  “Okay,” Dicey said again. She was thinking furiously, trying to see if there was a trap in this, or danger.

  “You really have no choice,” the priest said.

  Dicey nodded, with her eyes on his, but she was reciting to herself: Crisfield. Eastern Shore. Maryland.

  Father Joseph left, then, and Cousin Eunice brought Dicey a cot that she kept in the cellar. Dicey put it into the last of the floor space in the boys’ bedroom. Cousin Eunice wanted to object to having Dicey in with the boys, but she didn’t want her own room to be crowded, so she didn’t say much.

  Dicey looked in on the sleeping Maybeth before she made her final stop in the bathroom and lay down on her cot. She could hear James breathing softly. Sammy turned and rustled in the sheets.

  Dicey lay on her back with her arms under her head, staring at the blank, black ceiling. They had come here, had come here safely. If this was to be their home, then she could learn to get
along here. She would have to. Stewart was right, they had to stay together. That was the only important thing.

  She was lulled to sleep by the words repeating in her head: Crisfield, Eastern Shore, Maryland.

  CHAPTER 10

  A sharp knock on the door woke Dicey. She opened her eyes wide. The window was dark. Dicey had slept and awakened in so many unknown places that she never had that first, morning feeling of being lost, or not knowing where she was. She knew where she was, or rather, where she wasn’t.

  The knock came again. Dicey jumped off the cot and squeezed around the corner of the bed where her brothers slept to open the door.

  Cousin Eunice stood there, wearing the same black cotton dress, or its twin sister, and the same high-heeled shoes. “I am about to leave,” she whispered. “Can you come downstairs for a word before I go?”

  Dicey nodded. She closed the door and searched through the darkness for her shorts and her shirt.

  A rustling noise in the bed made her turn her head as she was about to leave. James sat up. “It’s still true,” he said.

  “Go back to sleep, James,” Dicey said. He lay down obediently, and his eyes closed.

  Dicey found Cousin Eunice in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea. Beside her on the table lay a black purse, black gloves, and a little round black hat with a brim that tilted up.

  “Good morning,” Dicey said.

  “I’m sorry to wake you so early,” Cousin Eunice said. Her face was pale above all the black around her. “But I am going to six-thirty mass. I always do that,” she said. “I get breakfast on my way to work. There’s a diner on the way, quite clean. Mother didn’t like making breakfast. And I’ve always gone to early mass.”

  Dicey nodded. She sat down facing her cousin.

  “I pray for Mother, and for myself, and for the world,” Cousin Eunice said. “This morning, I shall pray for you, and for your poor mother.”

  Dicey felt uncomfortable. “Thank you,” she said. Was that what you were supposed to say to somebody who was praying for you?

  “I thought of staying home today,” Cousin Eunice went on. She talked without looking at Dicey. “But I’ve never missed a day of work, not for any reason. Not in twenty-one years. Somehow, I didn’t want to miss today.”

  Dicey nodded.

  “Father Joseph said he would come by this morning and bring some clothing for you. He will register the younger children at camp, so that they can begin right away. So you must be sure to be here when he arrives.”

  “We will.”

  “But there is shopping that needs to be done, and usually on Thursday evenings I clean the living room, dust and vacuum, wash the windows, damp mop the floors. I couldn’t get that done last night.”

  “I can do that,” Dicey said.

  “Do be careful not to break anything,” Cousin Eunice urged.

  “I will,” Dicey said.

  “Here is some money. Try not to spend it all.” Cousin Eunice handed her twenty dollars. “We’ll need something for supper, I suppose. Can you cook?”

  Dicey nodded.

  “It has to be fish,” Cousin Eunice said. “Today is Friday.”

  “I’ve cooked fish,” Dicey said. Well, that was true. She had just never cooked fish on a stove, in a pan. What did Friday have to do with fish?

  “I get home at five forty. Will you be all right?”

  “We’ll be all right,” Dicey said. “You don’t need to worry about us.”

  “I don’t know how you’ve managed it,” Cousin Eunice said. “You must be a very resourceful child.”

  Dicey didn’t know what to say.

  “But you’re here now, and I’ll take care of you,” Cousin Eunice said.

  “That’s awfully nice of you,” Dicey answered. It sounded so flat. But she felt flat, flat and—she admitted it to herself—disappointed.

  “How could a Christian do less?” Cousin Eunice asked. Then she got up and put her hat on her head. She drew her gloves on over her plump hands and picked up her purse. “Until this evening then. You’re sure you’ll be all right?” Dicey nodded. “Don’t forget Father Joseph.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And the living room.”

  “I won’t. I mean, I’ll do it.”

  “And the shopping.”

  Dicey nodded.

  “Fish, remember. Why don’t we have a tuna casserole?”

  Dicey nodded. She hoped she could find a cookbook in this neat and tidy kitchen, maybe behind a cupboard door.

  Cousin Eunice left, drawing the door quietly closed behind her. Dicey breathed a sigh of relief, but the door opened immediately. “Don’t leave the house empty,” Cousin Eunice said. “There must be someone home, at all times. Thieves come, even in broad daylight these days.”

  “All right,” Dicey said.

  “It’s not as if I have anything valuable,” Cousin Eunice said. “But they steal anything. And murder—and other things—I don’t know—the world has gone crazy. I’ll have a key made for you, just one. Until then, don’t leave the house unlocked.”

  “I won’t,” Dicey said. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.”

  “How can I help worrying?” Cousin Eunice asked. She did not give Dicey time to answer.

  Dicey looked at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. It was shaped like a cat, with a long, curled tail that twitched the seconds. Six fifteen. Dicey familiarized herself with the kitchen, cupboards (no cookbook), drawers, refrigerator and freezer. She took a dustcloth and the vacuum and went into the living room.

  The room was cluttered, but not messy. Dicey didn’t think it needed cleaning, but if Cousin Eunice wanted it cleaned then she would clean it. She dusted the wooden-backed chairs, the table tops, the windowsills, the one bookcase, which held a Bible and two rows of photograph albums. Dicey thought she should ask permission before she looked through the albums. She dusted the pictures on the walls, of Jesus and Mary, like the ones that she used to see on Aunt Cilla’s Christmas cards, of Jesus being crucified, and photographs, of a round-faced man standing beside a round-fendered car, of a sharp-eyed woman with a fur around her neck, of a little girl with curly hair and a flouncy white dress and a bouquet of flowers held in her white-gloved hands. Dicey dusted the row of china cats on top of the bookcase. She dusted the lamps and the doorhandles. Then she ran the vacuum over the pale blue rug, careful to clean under tables and chairs.

  When she finished, it was seven thirty. She set out bowls and spoons and glasses of milk. Cousin Eunice had two kinds of cold cereal, cornflakes with sugar frosting, and a fruit cereal that said it had fifteen flavors in its different-colored little balls. Dicey put both boxes in the middle of the table. She wished she could find some flowers to put in a glass in the middle, but there were none in the backyard. Nothing grew there except a straggly, neglected cover of grass.

  Dicey enjoyed getting ready for this meal. The morning sun brightened the living room beyond. Light made things cheerful.

  They ate a quick breakfast and then Dicey washed and dried the bowls and glasses and spoons. Maybeth helped her put them away. Sammy and Maybeth went out to the backyard. Dicey took James upstairs and made him help her make their beds. Cousin Eunice had made her own.

  She left James in charge while she went to the store. There she purchased bread and milk and fruit, tuna fish and noodles and (after reading the instructions on the back of the bag of noodles) a can of mushroom soup, peanut butter, jelly. She also bought a dozen eggs, a box of pancake mix, a jar of syrup and a cheap red rubber ball (because if Sammy was going to spend most of the day waiting around, he’d need something to play with).

  Returning, unpacking the groceries, piling the dollars and change beside the toaster, washing the apples before putting them in the refrigerator, Dicey heard herself humming the song about Peggy-O. It was like playing house.

  James wandered in and took an apple. “There aren’t any books in the house. Are we going to stay here?”

  “I d
on’t think we can do anything else,” Dicey said. “So we’ve got to please Cousin Eunice, you know? And that Father Joseph too, I guess. We’ve got to be on best behavior all the time. Can you do that, James?”

  “Sure,” he said. “But it’s an awful small house for four kids.”

  “Bigger than ours was.”

  “Yeah, but there we had the dunes and the beach.”

  Dicey went out into the tiny yard and called Sammy and Maybeth to her. To them she repeated what she had just said to James. They nodded solemnly at her, then she pulled out her hand from behind her back and tossed the red ball to Sammy.

  He grabbed for it, missed, ran after it and caught it in two hands. He bounced it high. He turned and grinned at Dicey. Then he ran up to her and nearly knocked her over, hugging her. He called Maybeth to play catch.

  Dicey watched them playing, proud that she had thought to get the ball. Glad in her heart that she had been able to give it to them.

  They had finished lunch and washed and dried the plates and glasses by the time Father Joseph arrived. He carried two large shopping bags, which he passed to Dicey. “Clothes,” he told her.

  He gathered up the younger children and walked off down the street with them. James walked beside him. Sammy ran ahead. Maybeth trotted behind.

  Dicey was alone in the house. It felt strange to be alone. Being alone inside was very different from being alone outside. Inside, there was nothing to do. And she felt full of energy.

  She wanted to take a walk but she couldn’t leave the house empty. So she sorted through the bags of clothes.

  The clothes were worn, but clean and pressed. Their own clothes were worn out, but that was somehow different. Other people’s old clothes—Dicey quelled the thought. She must remember to be grateful. For Dicey and Maybeth there were dresses, for the boys shirts and trousers. Dicey didn’t like dresses. There was no underwear. No blue jeans. Two pairs of shoes, heavy leather shoes that tied with laces. She would have to tell Father Joseph what they needed. Or maybe Cousin Eunice could give them the money for shoes and underwear.