Homecoming (23 page)

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?”