Homecoming (21 page)

“No, I don’t.”

“You didn’t believe me about our father being the same,” Dicey reminded him.

“That’s true.”

“You just have to give Maybeth time.”

“How much time? There’s Sammy, too. The brothers report that he is not mixing in well.
He is hostile to his peers and hard to direct and control. He plays alone, because
the other boys avoid him.”

Dicey sighed. “It was hardest on Sammy when Momma left us. And before it was hardest
because she paid so much attention to him. James told me on our way here that in Provincetown
Sammy had it hardest of anyone. Because of coming after Maybeth. And the things people
said about Momma.”

“How did you and James manage?” Father Joseph asked.

“James is smart. He’d think his own thoughts and ignore people. I guess I just fought
back too hard for people to want to tease me. But Sammy wouldn’t. I mean, he’d fight,
but he’s not as fierce as I am.” Father Joseph smiled. “When he was a baby, he was
always happy and friendly. That’s the way he really is. He can still be that way.
Sometimes, on the way here, you could see it, you could see him getting to be more
like himself.”

“Sammy is a difficult child,” Father Joseph said. “But I suppose his hostility isn’t
surprising when you think of causes. He needs a warm, loving home.”

So do we all, Dicey thought. She looked quickly at Father Joseph. “I love Sammy,”
she said.

“Of course you do. You must consider, however, the effect of these burdens on your
own life. I think you must. I think you must give some thought to adoption and foster
homes. Sammy, despite his behavior, may prove the easiest to find a home for. It will
be hard to place Maybeth. A retarded child—”

“She’s not!”

“She has the symptoms,” Father Joseph answered gently. “And you, an older child. You
also would be hard to place. Your cousin—I don’t know what her plans are now.”

Dicey had no idea what he was talking about. She shrugged her shoulders.

“James also is old for adoption, but he would easily find a permanent home here at
the school, or he might stay with one of our families. His academic promise makes
him most desirable.”

Dicey could think of nothing to say.

“You should think of these things,” Father said, still gently. “I know you don’t want
to, but you must think them through and be ready. Think of yourself also. You are
still a child yourself.”

A child? Dicey felt a hundred years old. Or more.

“I’m not asking you to decide. Just to open your mind to other possibilities.”

Dicey nodded. She knew she should thank him, but she couldn’t. So she just walked
out of the room, without a word.

*  *  *

That afternoon, in the mail, Dicey received a check from the Police Department of
Peewauket, for fifty-seven dollars. The receipt with it said “Profits from the sale
of one 1963 Chevrolet sedan, less costs.” Dicey looked at the check and smiled, for
the first time in days, it felt. She could give it to Cousin Eunice and that would
make her cousin feel better about taking
the Tillermans in. Or she could buy some blue jeans for herself and Maybeth, which
would make them feel better. Or she could hide the money away, for what purpose she
didn’t know.

Dicey knew what she should do. She should give the money to Cousin Eunice. Instead,
she cashed the check at the grocery store, where the man knew her, and put the money
into the box Maybeth’s church shoes had come in.

Having money made a difference. It woke Dicey up. She began to think of how she could
earn more during the day when everybody was gone. She could easily spend less time
on housework if she pushed herself to be faster and more efficient. If she did that
she could have some time for earning. Dicey felt like her old self again.

Because she was young, Dicey couldn’t get a regular job. Over the next few days, she
thought hard about what she could do to earn money. She could wash windows, she knew
how, she’d done it. She decided to try that. If that didn’t work, she would try something
else.

The first place Dicey asked for work was the grocery store. The manager-owner, Mr.
Platernis, liked her, so she figured she’d try him first.

Dicey suggested to Mr. Platernis that she wash his windows three times a week, for
two dollars each time. He studied her.

“I’ve only got two windows,” he said.

“They’re plate glass, and big. I’d do them inside and out, and then I’d restack the
canned goods and dog food,” Dicey countered.

“You’d need some special equipment,” he said. “A long-handled washer, a bucket, cleanser.”

“If I knew I’d be using them I’d buy them,” Dicey said.

He considered this. Dicey enjoyed the bargaining. He enjoyed
it too. “I’d buy them here,” Dicey added. “I’d buy all my supplies here too.”

“You going into the business?”

“I might be.”

He thought some more. “Two dollars is a lot of money.”

“A store with clean windows is more attractive to customers. Especially a grocery
store. More people would come to shop here.”

“I can do the windows myself.”

“Three times a week? They get pretty dirty.”

“I know, oh I know. How about a trial period of a week?”

“Two weeks,” Dicey said. “It’ll cost me that much to get the equipment.”

He laughed at her. “All right, two weeks. And I’ll call some other people who might
be interested, some other store owners in this area. We’ll see if they would like
to employ your services.”

“Would you, Mr. Platernis? You won’t be sorry.” Dicey grinned at him.

By bargaining this way, before she knew it, Dicey had six regular jobs, washing the
city grime off the windows of neighborhood stores. She had two grocery stores, one
hardware store, one shoe store, one pawn shop and one dress store. The dress store
was her best job—they had four big windows they wanted washed three times a week,
so she earned twelve dollars a week from there. That, added to the six dollars weekly
from Mr. Platernis and four apiece from the other three stores, made a total income
of thirty dollars a week. Her supplies, once she had made the original purchase of
bucket and long-handled squeegee, cost her five dollars a week. Mr. Platernis let
her store her equipment in the closet with his own cleaning equipment and supplies,
just to keep an eye on her, he said. He didn’t need to worry—Dicey liked her work,
she liked making money.
The money in the shoebox began to mount up. Dicey’s spirits mounted with it.

She was working hard, but she seemed to have more energy than before. The July heat
thickened and deepened, but Dicey wasn’t slowed down by that. Mr. Platernis couldn’t
get over her high spirits. “You must have been raised in the tropics,” he said, mopping
at his face with a cloth handkerchief. He often stood outside and talked with Dicey
while she worked. He would help her replace the soup cans and bags of dog food she
had to move before she could wash the inside windows.

“I like having something to do,” Dicey said.

“I’d think you have enough to do keeping house for Miss Logan and your family. Since
you arrived I haven’t seen her, except passing by. You’re doing all her shopping,
and the rest of it too, I’m guessing.”

“That’s not the same,” Dicey said.

“You don’t like housework,” Mr. Platernis concluded.

Dicey didn’t contradict him, though she knew that wasn’t it. She didn’t mind housework.
She’d always kept house in Provincetown, although Momma wasn’t nearly as fussy as
Cousin Eunice. But it wasn’t the same when you always had to remember to feel grateful.

Dicey bought herself three maps: one of Connecticut, one of New York and New Jersey,
one of Maryland and Delaware. She found Crisfield easily enough, way down at the end
of Maryland, facing the Chesapeake Bay.

One night at dinner Dicey tried to find out something about her grandmother. “Did
you ever visit your mother’s family?” she asked.

Cousin Eunice looked up in surprise. “Of course not. Mother said she didn’t want to
go back, and she wouldn’t have me going near the place. Sammy! What are you doing?
Sit up! Don’t lie on the table! Bring the fork to your face, not your face to the
fork.”
Her eyes, sulking behind the glasses, went back to Dicey. “I don’t know why you children
can’t work on your manners yourselves, instead of worrying me with them. Don’t you
think I have enough to do?”

Dicey cast a quick eye around the table. Maybeth put her left hand into her lap and
straightened her back. Then she met Dicey’s glance with a silly smile, half worried,
half apologetic.

“I have enough to do,” Cousin Eunice went on. “And added to—” She hesitated and seemed
to remember something. “Sammy? Is that a cut on your hand?”

Sammy chewed and nodded.

“How did that happen?” Cousin Eunice asked.

Sammy stuck his jaw out. He did not answer.

“Answer me,” Cousin Eunice said.

“I don’t remember,” Sammy muttered.

“That is a lie.”

“How do you know?”

“I know because I heard about how you got cut, that’s how I know.”

“Then why did you ask me?” Sammy demanded.

Maybeth bowed her head lower over her plate. Dicey looked at Sammy, trying to will
him to be cooperative. Or at least quiet.

Cousin Eunice spoke through stiff lips. “Don’t be fresh. Don’t you ever be fresh with
me. You hear? The reason I asked you is because—because—because I wanted to hear what
you would say,” she finished lamely.

“I didn’t say nothing,” Sammy said.

“What was the fight about?” Cousin Eunice asked.

“Nothing,” Sammy said.

“Sammy?” Dicey interrupted. “Cousin Eunice wants to hear your side.”

“I can’t remember what it was about,” Sammy said stubbornly.
Dicey could have picked him up and shaken him.

“Who won?” James asked.

“James!” cried Cousin Eunice.

Sammy lifted his head. “Me, I did.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” Cousin Eunice said.

Yes it does, Dicey said to herself. It does to Sammy.

“I don’t want you to fight anymore,” Cousin Eunice announced. “I want you to promise
me that you won’t.”

Sammy chewed silently. He kept his eyes on his plate. At least, Dicey thought, his
mouth was closed.

“Sammy—” Cousin Eunice warned him.

He shook his head.

“Then you will go to your room. Right now.” Cousin Eunice’s voice sounded angry, and
tired. “And you will stay there for the rest of the night. You tell lies. You won’t
promise not to fight. I won’t have you at my table.”

Sammy got down from his chair and trudged out of the room. They heard his slow footsteps
going up the uncarpeted stairs. They heard the door slam behind him.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know,” Cousin Eunice said. She shook her head and the
sausage curls on it bounced. “At least I hear some fine things about James. James
seems to be making quite a good impression.” She smiled at him.

James wavered between saying something rude and being flattered. Dicey watched him
nervously. “James is smart,” she said, trying to tip the scales.

“It’s not only that,” Cousin Eunice said. “James conducts himself well, too. He is
a credit.”

“It’s a good school,” James finally said. Dicey let out her breath. James looked across
at her, waggled his eyebrows the way Windy had, and kept on talking. “When you think
of all there is to learn, in order to understand things. Like history and
science—there’s so much to learn. The fathers say that part of man’s purpose is to
increase his knowledge, so that he can understand better how great is God’s work.
A lot of people think knowledge is dangerous. But they’re wrong. Did you ever think
of that, Cousin Eunice?”

“Yes, of course,” Cousin Eunice said. “God wants children to study hard and behave
well in school.”

James answered slowly. “I guess you could say that. But that’s not the way the fathers
talk about it, about learning. They don’t treat it like a duty. They treat it like
a gift. Like grace.”

“I don’t think you can be right about that,” Cousin Eunice said. “Not grace. That’s
not what the Gospels say, is it? Nobody’s ever told me the Gospels say that. I’ve
always understood that duty is the most important, even the best.”

James shrugged. “Maybe learning’s just that way for me. Lucky for me, isn’t it?”

Cousin Eunice smiled at him. The tension was gone from the table. But Sammy hadn’t
had much dinner and he was up in his room. Dicey tried not to think about that. It
was his own fault anyway, for being so stubborn. But Dicey had never talked about
her fights when she got home—you just didn’t do that. That was squealing. Momma never
asked about them. Why did Cousin Eunice have to ask?

After the dishes were done and Sammy was asleep and Maybeth was tucked into her bed
and James was settled down to homework in the living room, Cousin Eunice called to
Dicey to join her in the kitchen. Dicey saw that a cup of tea had been made for her,
and for some reason that made her nervous.

“Sit down, Dicey,” Cousin Eunice greeted her. She was wearing another one of her black
dresses. Dicey had never seen her wearing colors. Her eyes looked out at Dicey from
behind polished glass. “I was talking with Father Joseph today.”

“I didn’t know that,” Dicey said. She wondered what was wrong now.

“He took me to lunch,” Cousin Eunice said. “Well, I was surprised when he asked me.
I wasn’t sure it was right—but he insisted that it was. We didn’t go to a real restaurant,
but it was a very nice cafeteria, everything as clean as you could want. I had a fruit
salad. There’s something I haven’t ever told you, you see, and Father Joseph thinks
I should.”

“What is that?” Dicey asked.

“Before you came, you and your family, I had certain—ambitions,” Cousin Eunice said.
Her voice was very soft and she stirred her tea thoughtfully. “Father Joseph knows
of these, of course. He approved of them, with certain reservations. And since he
had approved, I was sure it was the right thing.”