Homecoming: Part One, Chapters 1–5

They were drawn to restaurants that exuded the smell of spaghetti and pizza or fried chicken, bakeries with trays of golden doughnuts lined up behind glass windows, candy stores...

"There’s nothing wrong with Maybeth. You know that.”
"It runs in families. Hereditary craziness.”

He had a pig-person face, a coarse skin that sagged at the jowls, little blue eyes and pale eyebrows, and a fat, pushed-back nose.

She was used to running on beaches, where the sand gave way under your feet and each thrust of your legs was hindered. Running over asphalt was easier.

The air was clear, clean, lucid, lying lightly upon the world that morning.

The raucous cars roared past, unheeding.

The road made two sweeping curves before Dicey saw a ramshackle house with a "For Sale” sign in front of it. The house had such a small front lawn it sat almost on the road. It looked abandoned, its clapboard siding faded to splintery gray.

His first words were "hot” (he would grab out for anything) and "no” ("Doe,” he would cry, waving his arms, his face dreadfully earnest).

Dicey tried to look at the map realistically. She considered the lines that were roads, the green patches that were parks, and the flat blue of the sound, so different from the tumultuous, gray-faced ocean, where she had grown up.

Sammy stood, sullen and silent.

Her feet marched beneath her, step, step, step, plodding.

As repetitive, as relentless, her mind marched over the same problems: money, food, distance, where to sleep, Momma: step, step, step.

At last it was dark and Dicey let them return to the half-built house. Only the joists had been put in for walls, but the rough floors were down.

After a skimpy breakfast of milk, they started out and soon were crossing the Thames River on a bridge that arched like a rainbow, high enough to allow huge cargo ships to travel under it.

She saw Maybeth go back to Sammy and hold out her hand to the little boy. Sammy put his hand in hers and came trudging after.

Dicey walked ahead of the others through a rain that resolved itself into drifting mist. It was gray, cool, chilling. She clutched a grocery bag in each hand and then, as the brown paper grew sodden, under each arm.

Then Dicey saw water on the right, a large inland pond. You couldn’t sleep near it though; it was surrounded by sharp-edged marsh grass that grew only on muddy ground. However, opposite it a sign pointed to a dirt road running off into sparse, piney woods.

The beach at the end of this road was backed by low, rolling dunes, which flattened out to a narrow belt of sand before giving way to the placid gray water.

Three picnic shelters had been erected for the pleasure of the people of Noank, three open-sided structures with shingled roofs, tables, and in each shelter a stone fireplace for cooking.

The younger children scoured the beach for pieces of wood. Dicey went back to the woods to get needles and dry branches of quick-burning pine.

Then they all went back down the beach to find more driftwood. They returned with arms laden, and Dicey turned the potatoes, rinsed in rain drops, over and then arranged the chicken wings near to the edge of the fire so they wouldn’t scorch.

While the early evening light was still adequate, Dicey spread her map out.

They sang the whole song through until Dicey spoke the last line. She waited, just long enough, before saying, in a solemn voice, "She died, of course.”

This was vivid to her, the masculine voice crooning, "the little only, only in the world, only only.”

"When Maybeth was little, still a baby. There was a big party at our house. Momma wore her yellow dress with the flounces, and she had flowers in her hair. They got married, right outside. There was a man in a blue suit, and they stood together in front of him and said the words. Don’t you remember?”

Soon Maybeth too was asleep, her head in Dicey’s lap.
James emerged from a reverie.

They were walking abreast on the untraveled road.

The rest of the shore front seemed to be headlands and rocky promontories. The high land began at the southwest corner of the park and ran down to the water, which it met up with about halfway along the length of waterfront.

The picnic area had "Facilities” marked on it. "What do you think that means?” Dicey asked, pointing.
"Toilets I guess,” James answered. "Do you think they have showers too?”

Soon they were standing on top of a rocky bluff, looking down to shallow water. The path ran on for several more yards along the front of the bluff, then descended to a small beach.

"And I do have a headache,” he said hopefully.
"Bad?”
"Pretty bad, not terrible,” he said. "But if I fall asleep within about half an hour, you better call an ambulance. The danger is lapsing into a coma.”

He looked sort of bad. He was the one who knew what the symptoms of concussion were, so he could fake it. But she couldn’t imagine James faking nausea and missing a meal.

They cleaned up the bones and innards and tossed them into the water. Dicey praised Sammy absentmindedly for catching the fish.

Dicey sidled away from them and went to the swings.

Count on James to think things through, Dicey thought, and forgave him for his lack of persistence the day before and for being careless and falling.

The scene could have been painted in watercolors, so pale was the green of the grass, so subdued was the blue of the water.

Dicey caught a fish almost right away, six or seven inches long. She rebaited the hook and caught another, even larger. She couldn’t believe her luck. Every few minutes she could feel the tentative, jerking nibble on the end of her line.

"James? We got you something,” Edie said. "It’s convalescent food.” She handed him a small grocery bag. It held two oranges.

They had a fire on the beach that evening and steamed mussels so hot and chewy they burned their tongues on the tawny meat.

James stayed seated, his eyes reproachful.