Six miles outside of town, Dicey came to the expected bend in the road. A low, one-story white house looked out from a stand of pines. Behind it were stables. Two pastures, where long-legged horses grazed, came next.
Half a mile down the road, Dicey saw the mailbox, dented, rusted, its post awry; llerma was all that remained of sloppily painted black letters. The little door hung open, like a dog’s tongue. Two or three old leaves lay inside, and a plastic glass with a straw sticking out of its cover.
Across the road, where the farm itself lay, overgrown fields stretched back to meet a thick woods of pine trees, oaks and tall, topheavy loblollies. The fields had small trees scattered over them, pine and maple saplings, and the grass was thick and tangled, as tall as Dicey’s waist.
The driveway ran straight between the fields. It too was overgrown. You could barely make out the ruts where car wheels would fit.
The sun had risen high into the sky. Dicey turned into the driveway, walking slowly now, even reluctantly. She did not look ahead, but at the ground before her feet. Abandoned, that was the word this farm said to her.
She couldn’t even see the house until she had passed under the pines, walking now on a thick carpet of needles that seemed never to have been disturbed. The air under the pines was thick and shady.
The house sat behind a small orchard, and beyond it, a barn was slowly falling down. The house was faded white clapboard, two stories high, and had a screened porch all along the front that ran around the sides. The roof, gray slate, slanted down in four directions from a central peak. Two chimneys stuck up through the roof.
The house was silent, vacant, neglected. Long weedy grass grew up, as high as the porch floor. Honeysuckle spread over the screens of the porch, and its long fingers reached for the trees in the yard. Most of the trees were short, heavily leaved. Some had tiny apples growing on them. They had the rough bark of fruit trees.
One larger tree grew right up in front of the house, hiding the front door, shading the lawn. This tree looked like an umbrella, held overhead by four trunks that spread out from their common source. Its broad leaves made a green canopy against the sunlight. It wouldn’t be a good climbing tree, Dicey thought, walking up to it and past it, but you could make a platform tree house to rest on the four trunks and build steps out of pieces of wood to go up one trunk. Then, you would have a house like a boat, almost floating on air, and the long, leafy branches stretching above like sails.
Dicey pushed her way through the long grasses to the steps leading to the porch. The grass tickled her knees. Grasshoppers leaped aside to let her pass.
The steps were rotting away. The screen door hung from broken hinges. The sun couldn’t penetrate the honeysuckle leaves, so the motionless air on the porch was as dark as twilight.
Dicey knocked on the door. It was a wooden door, once painted white. A rusted nail stuck out from its center, over Dicey’s head.
Nobody answered. She knocked again and listened. She heard faint noises, like some night creature scurrying. But the noises did not come toward the door.
Somebody was in there, of that Dicey was sure. She knocked again, three loud raps. No voice called out. Dicey turned the knob and pushed against the door. It was locked.
She went back across the porch and down the steps. She walked around to the side of the house.
The side looked just like the front, except that it had no steps or door. There were two windows on the second floor and four on the first, which were barely visible through honeysuckle. The honeysuckle here had not grown as fast as that on the front of the house. The porch, she noticed, continued around the back. The whole house was surrounded by a broad porch.
All the second story windows had their shades down. Nobody could be seen inside, nor any light. Dicey went on, around to the back.
She saw the woman the moment the woman saw her. The woman sat on the bottom of some steps facing out, over more fields (only these had crops growing in them) and the distant dull green of marsh grass. She wore a shapeless blouse over a long, shapeless skirt. Her feet were bare.
Her dark eyes looked at Dicey angrily. Her skin was tanned. Her hair had been hacked short, so its iron gray curls burst helter-skelter all over her narrow head.
Dicey stood where she was. She swallowed, twice. Her throat was suddenly dry.
“Mrs. Tillerman?” she finally asked. Her voice squeaked.
“You’re trespassing,” the woman said. She had a thin, stiff voice, not like Momma’s at all.
“I thought I heard—when I knocked—I didn’t know if—” Dicey stepped forward. “The fact is, I wonder if you would hire me to work for you.” She stood right in front of the woman now. Her grandmother.
Her grandmother’s eyes seemed big for her face as she stared at Dicey. But maybe that was just because her face was small, the skin stretched tight over its bones. Her eyes, now that Dicey was closer, were not brown but dark hazel, browns and greens without any yellow to give them sparkle. Fine lines sprayed out from around her eyes.
These were the eyes of the girl in Cousin Eunice’s photograph album. The rest of her was all different, but the eyes were the same.
“The fact is you’re trespassing,” her grandmother said. “Who told you to come here?”
“Nobody. I heard you were alone—so I thought I’d try.”
“I don’t know you, do I?”
Dicey shook her head. “We’re new here.”
“Why aren’t you in school?”
“It’s summer.”
“Not for long.”
Her grandmother stood up. She walked up the steps and through the screen door, without looking back. The back door stood open, and she went straight into a kitchen.
Dicey followed her.
Her grandmother opened a glass-fronted cupboard and pulled down a can of spaghetti. She took a can opener out of a drawer and opened the can. A saucepan waited on the stove. She opened another drawer, took out a big spoon and scooped the stiff red and yellow contents of the can into the saucepan. With a match, she lit a fire under the burner. She dropped the match into an ashtray and turned to take a bowl out from the cupboard.
Dicey might just as well not have been there.
Her grandmother waited by the stove, stirring in the pan.
“I didn’t say come in,” she said.
“You never said if you want me to work,” Dicey answered.
Hazel eyes studied Dicey. Dicey studied the barefooted woman. Her feet were caked with earthy dirt.
“How do I know you’re not going to rob me?” her grandmother said.
How could she know? Dicey thought. The people in the houses were in just as much danger as the people outside the houses. “I’m not,” Dicey said. “It doesn’t look like you have much to steal anyway.”
“You have family?”
“Yes,” Dicey said.
“Where do you live?”
“In town. I can work hard. Your barn needs painting, and the screens and the steps, and the lawn. I could take off the honeysuckle.”
“I’m not too old to do that.”
“I can pick and weed.”
“So can I. So can anybody. You better get down a bowl, since you’ve invited yourself for lunch.”
Dicey did as she was told.
They sat down at a long table, big enough for ten people. It was made of wood and had been scrubbed to a pale, smooth finish. Dicey sat across from her grandmother. She spooned the canned spaghetti into her mouth. After the first bite, she ate quickly, trying to fill up her stomach without tasting anything.
“You like my spaghetti?” her grandmother asked.
“No,” Dicey said. “But I’m hungry. Do you like it?”
“It’s easy to fix. You know what I sometimes think?” Her grandmother looked straight at her, her mouth chewing. “I sometimes think people might be good to eat. Cows and chickens eat corn and grass and turn it into good meat. People eat cows and chickens. In people, it might turn into som
ething even better. Do you ever think that?”
Dicey shook her head.
“Especially babies,” her grandmother said. She swallowed thoughtfully. “Or children. Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Who told you I was alone?”
“A lady in the grocery store.”
“Millie. She’s the butcher. Can you imagine that? A lady butcher.”
“Why not?” Dicey asked.
“I guess you might say so. Millie is one, and that’s a fact. Facts are facts. What did she say about me?”
“Nothing much.”
“Did she tell you I was crazy?” Her grandmother wasn’t looking at her.
Dicey didn’t answer.
“Maybe I am. You know? When you die all the gases build up in your body for weeks, like yeast in dough. And you swell and swell. Then, things start exploding. That’s where the stink comes from. After that, you’re fresh as a daisy and the worms and maggots have you. What do you think?”
Dicey put her spoon down. She was through eating.
Her grandmother’s mouth twisted. “What do you think about death? Don’t be smart with me, girl.”
Dicey was puzzled.
“Or don’t you think?”
“I saw a tombstone. Home is the hunter, home from the hill and the sailor home from the sea: that was what it said. As if”—Dicey tried to explain her thoughts—“that was the quiet place at the end of things.”
“It’s not quiet,” her grandmother said. “Not for the worms.”
“I wouldn’t care about that if I was dead,” Dicey said.
“Maybe I am crazy,” her grandmother said. “You know?”
Dicey was beginning to think she might be.
“Maybe not. Do you feel sorry for me?”
“Why should I?” Dicey asked.
“Old, alone, crazy—the farm falling down around me. My husband dead these four years and more.”
“I’m sorry,” Dicey said.
“I’m not. I’m happy since he died.”
“Why?” Dicey asked.
“He kept wanting his shoes polished. He never did polish them himself. First thing I did, I bought myself a washing machine. Do you play the piano?”
“No.”
“Too bad,” the woman said. “I’ve got one. Haven’t played it myself, I never had time. My children did. They all died too, and that was a relief.”
Dicey stood up. She didn’t even feel bad. She didn’t feel anything, except maybe glad she had come out here by herself.
“You’re going,” her grandmother said.
Dicey nodded.
“You didn’t offer to help with the dishes. No, don’t bother. I know what children are like.”
“Okay,” Dicey said. It didn’t matter. She’d go back and get her family, and they’d call Will.
“Don’t you want to know if I want you to work for me?” her grandmother said. She was still sitting in her chair, but she had turned around to watch Dicey leave. “Well, I don’t. I couldn’t pay you anyway.”
Dicey nodded and turned her back to the room.
The woman’s voice spoke from behind her: “I know who you are. You hear me? I know who you are, and you can’t stay here.”
CHAPTER 8
Slowly, Dicey turned. She looked all around the room before she answered. She didn’t know what she should say. Why should she say anything? She’d been told to go away.
Sunlight poured into the kitchen through the door and windows. (So, her grandmother had kept the honeysuckle down on this side of the house.) It was a long bright plain room, the kitchen. Everything in it looked old and scrubbed, like the top of the table. Wooden counters, wooden cupboards, wooden chairs, wooden floor; only the refrigerator, sink and stove were porcelain. A single light hung down over the table. It had a pale yellow glass hood over it.
Her grandmother sat without moving, staring at Dicey.
“Then who am I?” Dicey asked.
“I knew the minute you knocked on the door. That’s why I came outside. A polite person would have gone away.” Her grandmother waited to see what Dicey would say.
Dicey didn’t say anything.
“Oh, I know who you are; you’re the oldest one, I can’t remember your name. There’s a foolish letter here, somewhere. It has all your names in it.”
This wasn’t good enough. “You don’t know who I am,” Dicey said.
“You’re Liza’s daughter. Some ungodly name she gave you, her and that Francis. I liked him, I did.”
“Who’s the letter from?” Dicey asked.
“Connecticut,” her grandmother answered. “Where are the rest of you? One’s retarded, the letter said. Maudlin, simpering fool. Can’t blame her though. Her mother simpered, simpered and looked in mirrors, all her life. She’s dead now. My sister Cilla—she’s dead too. Is she retarded?”
“No,” Dicey said. “Not that it concerns you.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t concern me one whit. Did you ditch them somewhere?”
Dicey could follow her grandmother’s thoughts easily now, now that she knew what the woman was talking about.
“They’re waiting for me in town. We’ve got a place to go.”
“Back to that one?”
“Maybe,” Dicey said. She was angry now. This—grandmother. Dicey wouldn’t give two pins to satisfy her curiosity. If this grandmother had known all along.
“A polite person wouldn’t have pretended not to know me,” Dicey said.
“Never said I had good manners. Never had any manners to say anything about.” Her grandmother seemed pleased.
“My name’s Dicey,” Dicey said.
“That’s right,” her grandmother said. “I remember now. It was in the letter. I’m not crazy.”
“I know,” Dicey said. “I’m going now.”
“Suit yourself. Where you all sleeping?”
“We’re moving on. We don’t need a place to stay.”
“Don’t you lie to me, girl. If you didn’t need a place to sleep you wouldn’t have traipsed out here this morning. You wouldn’t have come around back to find me. You wouldn’t have asked Millie—did you tell her who you were?”
“No,” Dicey said. Her anger flamed up again. “No, why should I? We can’t stay here, you said so. So there’s no point in hanging around. I’ve got my family to get back to.”
“I said sleep. There’s no reason not to sleep here, is there?”
“Yes,” Dicey said. “I think there is.” Why should James and Maybeth and Sammy have to be disappointed.
“I’m family too,” her grandmother said. She took the bowls from the table and walked over to the sink. “And I can hear what you’re thinking, girl.”
Dicey hoped she couldn’t.
“So you’ll sleep here. All of you. Because you have no place else to go.”
“We do too,” Dicey said.
“Then why did you come here? Can you answer me that?”
Dicey’s lips were tight. Her grandmother’s lips were tight. They glared at one another across the kitchen. Neither one of them faltered.
Then her grandmother’s lips twitched and spilled out laughter. She cut the laughter off quickly, dried her hands on her skirt and said to Dicey: “Two of a kind we are. Poor Liza. Two of a kind.”
It was the laughter that undid Dicey. How could you be angry at someone who was laughing. “Okay,” she said. “But—”
“But what? Be nice to them? Nicer than I was to you?”
“Yeah,” Dicey said.
“I’m not promising anything,” her grandmother said. “Let’s get going.”
She led the way out to the back. Dicey turned toward the dilapidated barn, where the truck must be. But her grandmother headed straight off to the fields. Her feet must have leather soles, Dicey thought as they crossed through the vegetable gardens on a dirt path.
“I don’t have a car,” her grandmother said over her shoulder. She moved like a
young woman, long, strong strides, her arms hanging easy at her sides. “Not since he died. I always hated them. I never learned to drive.”
The path crossed between two long, well-kept fields (mostly tomatoes and corn, but other crops too, squashes and beans) and entered the marsh grass. Dicey followed her grandmother. However bad the rest of the farm, the barn and the house looked, her grandmother had worked on these fields. A steady wind blew, causing the grasses to bow and whisper among themselves.
Ahead, Dicey saw open water. The bay lay at the farm’s edge.
The path led up to a dock built of weathered gray wood. At the end of it was tied a long open boat. It had an outboard motor and four seats. It was at least fifteen feet long and painted a bright red, inside and out. The boat looked taken care of too.
Dicey jumped in and sat on the center bench. Her grandmother untied the painter, pulled the boat around until its stern was near the dock and jumped in herself, dropping the line into Dicey’s lap.
“Coil that,” she said, and turned to the motor.
She pulled once on the starter, the motor hummed, and she headed the boat out into the bay.
They couldn’t have talked over the noise of the motor without screaming at one another, so Dicey didn’t try. She sat with her back to her grandmother and watched the prow of the little boat cut through the quiet water. She felt the fine spray the boat threw back, inhaled the salty air, and looked out to a horizon made only of sky and water.
They followed the coastline, which was mostly marshes. Dicey saw few houses. Then they came into Crisfield harbor, which was hidden behind a point of land. Shacks, bleached white by sunlight, leaned against one another. Piles of oyster shells made small pointed hills beside the shacks and behind them and in front of them.
Dicey turned around and leaned toward her grandmother. “They’re on the farthest dock over,” she called.
Her grandmother nodded and yelled something back. Dicey couldn’t hear her. They didn’t speak again.