Homecoming

  “She took us in. She didn’t have to do that,” Dicey said. “She’d never even heard of us.” She wanted Sister Berenice to appreciate what Cousin Eunice had done. She wanted to appreciate it herself.

  “How old are you?” she asked Dicey.

  Dicey’s temper flared. “I’m thirteen. How old are you?”

  A smile bent the corners of Sister Berenice’s pale mouth. “Fifty-three, old enough to recognize spirit when I meet it. Tell me about your sister, Dicey.”

  Dicey stared at her in surprise. For a minute she couldn’t think of anything to say. Usually, people told her about Maybeth, and she tried to explain that they were wrong. Nobody had ever asked her first.

  “She’s shy,” Dicey said. “She almost never speaks to strangers. And people always want to speak to her, because she’s pretty. Usually, she stays stiff and quiet and stares, with big eyes. She doesn’t even talk to us much. But when she does, it’s always the right thing to say. Not right-polite, right-true.”

  Sister Berenice sat listening, with folded hands. So Dicey went on.

  “I don’t know why Maybeth is the way she is. But she’s always been that way. From the time she started school, her teachers thought she was stupid. I guess I can understand that. She would be so quiet that you’d think she didn’t know anything. She stayed back one year, in first grade. Then the teacher wanted to keep her back this year, or at least that’s what I think. Momma never opened those notes.”

  “You said she almost never speaks to strangers. That means she sometimes does. Who did she speak to?”

  Dicey told her how Maybeth had talked to Stewart and sung with him. “She sings—it’s lovely when she sings. She learns songs fast, music and words. She couldn’t be retarded and do that, could she?”

  Sister Berenice just smiled.

  “And she can read,” Dicey said. “Not like James, but as well as Sammy. She used to read to me at home when I asked her to. And she can add and subtract.” Dicey thought. “She’s not quick, but she can work the problems out. It just takes her a longer time to learn school things, and she’s too shy to say what she knows. When she plays, she builds gardens and castles and makes up stories about them.” Dicey had never before defined so exactly just what Maybeth could and could not do. “I guess she’s slow at school, but I don’t think she’s retarded. Or anything like that.”

  “Would you go look out the window at the children?” Sister Berenice asked Dicey. Puzzled, Dicey obeyed.

  The playground was surrounded by a tall fence. Little groups of children were gathered about, playing or reading or listening to one of several nuns who were out there with them. Dicey’s eyes searched for Maybeth among the many little girls.

  She found her, sitting in a circle around a nun with a guitar. Maybeth sat behind the group. Her dress, like Dicey’s, was long and dark. Her face was round and sad. All the other little girls were singing and clapping their hands, but Maybeth was staring at the nun’s hands as they played on the instrument. She was not singing. She was not clapping.

  The nun stopped playing and said something, at which all the little girls jumped up and ran to different parts of the playground. Maybeth didn’t move. The nun bent to speak to her and she looked up.

  “But she looks frightened,” Dicey said. “Why does she look frightened?” She heard the rude, demanding tone of her own voice.

  Sister Berenice didn’t answer.

  “I see what you mean,” Dicey said. Maybeth did look different from all the other little girls. Dicey watched her sister walk slowly over to the swings. She stood there. Several girls were swinging energetically. There were some unoccupied swings, but Maybeth didn’t get onto one. The other girls paid no attention to her.

  It was as if Maybeth wasn’t even there, not even to herself. What was wrong with her? She looked—empty.

  “But she isn’t that way,” Dicey started to say.

  “I wonder,” Sister Berenice said in a voice that suggested doubt. Sister Berenice didn’t believe Dicey. Why should she?

  “Father Joseph said that you were unusual,” Sister Berenice said to Dicey.

  “He did?”

  “Yes.” The rich voice assured Dicey that this was the truth. “To keep your family together, and fed. But I wonder if you have faced the truth about Maybeth. I think you may be fooling yourself.” This, too, Dicey recognized, was the truth.

  Maybe she was, maybe . . .

  “Do you know the kind of special schooling available to a child like Maybeth? Not through us, of course, but the state maintains excellent facilities for disabled children. There is much they can learn and do, such children, if they are properly taught. Is it fair to Maybeth to deny her the opportunity, just because you don’t want to face the facts?”

  “No,” Dicey said. The word burst from her.

  “I didn’t think you wanted to do that to Maybeth.”

  “No,” Dicey said again. “Those aren’t the facts.”

  “Oh, now,” the nun said. She sounded disappointed in Dicey.

  Dicey sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be rude.”

  “Are you thinking of Maybeth or of yourself?” Sister Berenice asked quietly.

  Dicey didn’t know, and she didn’t care; she was too tired and discouraged to think of an answer. This nun had already made up her mind anyway. Dicey didn’t want to think about Maybeth anymore. She was arguing more from habit than conviction. “You just don’t know,” she repeated.

  “I think I probably know better than you do.”

  Dicey was finished arguing. She just wanted to get out of there and take Maybeth with her. “Can Maybeth come with me now? It’s almost time.”

  The nun stared at her for a long time. Finally she answered, “Yes, of course.” But her voice said more, it told Dicey that the sister was sorry she had asked Dicey to come in. Well, Dicey was sorry too. She nodded, and left the room.

  Dicey entered the playground through the tall iron gates. She started to walk over to where Maybeth was, but a young nun came and asked her what she was doing there. She sounded important, as though she was accustomed to being obeyed without question. Dicey explained who she was. She said that she had been meeting with Sister Berenice and had permission to take Maybeth home. The young nun looked back at the windows behind them and stood aside.

  Maybeth had seen Dicey. She smiled at her, but did not come running as Sammy would have. Dicey smiled back and hoped the way she was feeling didn’t show in her face. “Let’s go get Sammy,” she said, holding out her hand.

  * * *

  Sammy had a cut on his forehead that someone had covered with a big Band-Aid. His lip was swollen. “Oh Sammy.” Dicey could not keep the worry out of her voice. “You said you’d try.”

  “I did.”

  “You were in a fight,” Dicey said. “And a pretty bad one.”

  “He said—”

  “Who? Who said?”

  “Johnny. I don’t know his last name. And I don’t care. He’s a big kid. He’s in fourth grade. I made him cry and I didn’t cry.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said I was going to a foster home because nobody here likes me. He said he heard the fathers saying it. It’s not true, is it Dicey? So I fought him.”

  “What did the fathers say?”

  “Johnny’s the one that heard them. He said they didn’t know he could hear.”

  “No, no. I mean when they stopped the fight. They did stop it, didn’t they?”

  Sammy nodded. They were walking to James’s school. Dicey held one hand of each of the little ones. There was too much bad news in this day.

  “They didn’t say nothing. We didn’t tell ’em nothing.”

  “So they think it’s all your fault, don’t they?”

  Sammy nodded. “I have to stay inside alone tomorrow. All day.”

  “Oh Sammy. Why didn’t you tell them what Johnny said?”

  “Because they try to find out everything. What’
s a foster home?”

  “You didn’t know? And you fought about it?”

  “It’s not good is it? I could tell that. From how he said it.”

  Dicey sighed. “A foster home is where somebody not your own family takes you into their home to live. And somebody gives them an allowance, to pay for you.”

  “You wouldn’t let them do that, would you, Dicey? I told Johnny and he said you couldn’t stop them.”

  Dicey felt helpless, absolutely helpless, with the two little ones holding her hands. She knew how Sammy felt. She wanted to fight somebody herself. Or to run, fast, not waiting for lights to change. But she had the two little ones holding on to her.

  “There’s James now,” she said to Sammy. Sammy ran to meet his brother. James was walking quickly, a huge smile on his face. At least one of us is happy, Dicey thought.

  Dicey called the bus station and found out that it cost twenty-six dollars to get to Crisfield. Fifty-two dollars there and back. She would still have some money, so she wouldn’t be dependent. She would stay in a hotel or something, for a couple of days. It was only for a couple of days, until she took a look at this grandmother, to see for herself.

  She purchased a small overnight case at the Goodwill store. She located the bus station in Bridgeport. There, she picked up a bus schedule and found out that if she left Bridgeport at ten o’clock in the morning, she would have to change at New York for Wilmington. At Wilmington, she decided by looking at a map, she could get a bus to take her down to Easton, then Salisbury, then Crisfield. Easton and Salisbury were yellow on the map so they were big towns. There would be sure to be buses.

  This was on a Thursday. She thought she would go the next Monday, so that the little ones would be in camp during the day while she was away. James could take charge, for four days. That was all she’d be gone for. They would just have to get along without her for four days. There was no way she could take them with her. Just as there was no way she could tell Cousin Eunice she was going.

  That evening, Cousin Eunice came home late from work carrying a bakery bag. “Father Joseph called me at work. He is bringing a friend by after supper, after the children are in bed,” she said. “I got a cake on my way home. Did you get the living room done today? It’s Thursday.”

  Dicey nodded.

  “Father Joseph said you have already met this man, a policeman. I have not. Did you wash the windows?”

  Dicey had forgotten that. She lied. Well, it wasn’t an entire lie, since she had washed windows that day. She just hadn’t washed the windows Cousin Eunice meant.

  “And a good vacuuming? I don’t know—the house gets so dirty with all you children. I don’t know how you manage to collect so much dirt and bring it inside.” She fluttered about the kitchen, fussing over one thing and another, looking in the icebox for lemons, in the cupboard to be sure her good teapot was clean and there was sugar in the sugar bowl.

  It could not be good news they brought. Dicey knew that ahead of time. If it had been good news, the sergeant would have called her up right away, or Momma would have called her up, or Momma would have appeared at the house.

  Father Joseph and Sergeant Gordo arrived late. The two men and Cousin Eunice sat in all the chairs there were in the living room. After she had passed around the teacups, milk, sugar, lemon and cake, Dicey sat on the floor. She was wearing one of the stiff dresses Father Joseph had brought. Cousin Eunice twittered as she poured tea, then fell silent.

  “We have located your mother,” Sergeant Gordo said. He held a teacup in one hand and a plate with cake in the other. He could neither eat nor drink, because he had no free hand. He looked around for a table to set the plate on. Cousin Eunice made a little Oh sound at this news.

  “I thought so,” Dicey said.

  “I don’t have anything good to tell you,” Sergeant Gordo said.

  “I didn’t think so,” Dicey said. She made her face expressionless.

  “You’re a smart kid,” the sergeant said. “Your mother is in a state hospital in Massachusetts. She was found in Boston. She—do you know the term catatonic?”

  Dicey shook her head.

  “It means the patient won’t respond to anything. Your mother—well, she doesn’t do anything, doesn’t speak, doesn’t seem to hear what’s said to her, won’t feed herself, won’t move at all, not even to go to the bathroom. When they found out about her family, the doctors tried talking to her about you. No response. No response at all. Nothing. They think she’s incurable.”

  Dicey nodded. “Are you sure it’s Momma?”

  “Her fingerprints match the ones the hospital took when you children were born.”

  “Why did they do that?” Dicey asked. She didn’t know why she asked. She didn’t care what he answered.

  “So the mothers and babies can be sure they go together. They do the baby’s feet. So nobody gets mixed up.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I’ve got a picture.”

  Dicey took the photograph. She looked at the vacant-faced woman lying in a bed, her hair cut off short and her hazel eyes staring at the camera without any expression, as if the camera and photographer were not there. Her face looked so flat and empty, so far away, as if it hung miles above the earth and could not be bothered by anything happening on the little planet below. “They cut her hair,” Dicey said. “Are they sure she’s incurable?”

  “These head-shrinkers are never sure of anything. But they’re as near to sure as they can be.”

  “I could go see her,” Dicey suggested.

  “I wouldn’t do that, little girl. They’ll get in touch with us if there’s any change, and then maybe it might do some good.”

  “It would be best to forget her,” Father Joseph said.

  “What if I don’t want to?” Dicey demanded, angry.

  “I didn’t mean that, child. I meant, it is better not to have false hopes.”

  Dicey clamped her mouth shut.

  “Poor Liza,” Cousin Eunice said. “She’s only five years younger than I am. Do you know that?”

  Cousin Eunice poured out more cups of tea, which Dicey passed around. The adults talked around her and above her, about adoption procedures and welfare applications. “Sammy is on trial here,” Cousin Eunice said to Father Joseph.

  He nodded. “As is Maybeth,” he answered. Cousin Eunice shook her head but didn’t say anything. Dicey walked out of the room. She heard Cousin Eunice start to call her back and Father Joseph say to let her go.

  Maybeth was asleep and so was Sammy. James wasn’t. Dicey undressed and lay down on her cot. Her mind was blank.

  “What about Momma?” James whispered.

  “How’d you know?”

  “That policeman . . . they came in a police car.”

  “Momma’s gone crazy,” Dicey reported in a flat voice, “and they don’t think she’ll ever get better. She’s in a mental hospital. She was in Boston. How do you think she got to Boston?”

  James sat up. “What kind of crazy?”

  “A kind where you just lie in bed and don’t do anything. James, do you think Maybeth’s like Momma?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think Maybeth could go crazy like that?”

  “Yes. If—if she had to. You know? Momma had four kids and no job. Our father walked out on her.”

  “But we were happy, weren’t we? When we were in Provincetown. We were, I know it. Momma wasn’t crazy then.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know, Dicey. Does that mean this is our home?”

  “Yeah. I guess so. I don’t know, James. Would you like that?”

  “It’s a good school,” James said. “I’ve never been in a school like this, where the teachers all know so much and they like it when you ask questions and they keep giving you more work. Nothing bothers the fathers, you know? Oh, swearing and things, those. But they’re so sure they have the answers, they don’t mind you asking questions. In this school, I’m really glad I’m me. I can learn anything—do you kno
w how that feels, Dicey? The fathers show me how and I learn. You better believe I’m happy.”

  “Should we tell Sammy and Maybeth?”

  “About Momma? I guess so, sometime. Not right now. Or is right away better?”

  So they woke the two younger children and told them the bad news. Maybeth just nodded and sat closer to Dicey on the cot.

  Sammy stuck his chin out. “She’ll still get better maybe,” he declared. “How do they know so much anyway. I don’t care what they say. I won’t believe them.”

  Dicey grinned at him, unable to stretch her mouth wide enough to let out all the feelings his silly stubbornness let her feel. Then she began to cry. “I’m sorry, Dicey,” Maybeth said.

  “Me too,” Dicey said, burying her face in her sister’s hair. “I’m sorry too.”

  Now she had to go on Monday and find out fast what Crisfield was like. What their grandmother was like. Cousin Eunice would flutter and flitter, and before they knew it the Tillermans would be adopted. Or something worse.

  It was not that Dicey was ungrateful. They might end up here. Cousin Eunice’s house might be the best place for them. Even for Sammy and Maybeth. It might be the best they could do, even if Sammy and Maybeth had to go somewhere else. But Dicey had to know that for sure.

  That weekend she took the family to the beach. She was especially careful to pay attention to them. She laughed at Sammy’s jokes and turned cartwheels on the sand with him and tossed him up over her shoulders into the water until he was exhausted. She built castles with Maybeth, decorating them with bits of shell and colored stones, telling stories about princesses and giants. She talked with James about history and science, listening with all her brain, so her questions would show that she was really interested.

  Monday morning, she walked them all to camp and school. Sammy hesitated at the gate and said, “I wish it was always the weekend.”

  Dicey ruffled his hair.

  Maybeth let go of Dicey’s hand and walked slowly over to where the little girls were gathering. Her dress was too long for her. She looked clumsy.

  Dicey asked James to pick up the little children. “I’ll leave the door unlocked. I’ve got something to do,” she explained. “Can you get them at the end of the day? And don’t be late—Maybeth worries.”