Dicey's Song

by Cynthia Voigt

  Dicey felt as if she was a million miles away from the hospital. And that felt better.

  The next store she went into was the wood store again. A man with a beard was reading a magazine behind a glass-topped counter. Dicey went right up and asked him, “Do you have chess games made out of wood?”

  She was finished with her question before he had finished lifting his face to look at her. He pushed his glasses up on top of his head. All he did was nod, yes.

  Dicey was about to ask him how much they cost when he stood up straight and moved slowly to the opposite side of the store. He took down a box and opened it.

  The top of the box slid back, in grooves. The box was roughly made. It hadn’t been sanded smooth, or waxed. The chess pieces lay jumbled together inside. Dicey picked a couple out and looked at them. They weren’t fancy, but they felt warm in her hand. Some were stained black, some were left a plain, pale white. A lot of them were little round-topped figures, just the right size to hold between your fingers. Some had been carved into rough statuettes. Dicey thought she recognized a tower for a castle and two tall figures, one a man, one a woman. He named them the king and queen; he named knights and bishops, pawns, rooks. The details weren’t carefully cut, but you couldn’t confuse the pieces. “I get these from Mexico,” he explained.

  “Are there any made here?” Dicey asked.

  He tapped his finger on the top of the counter, pointing her attention below. There, a set of wooden chess pieces was arranged for play on a wooden board. These pieces had been carved, but not stained. One of the woods was a rich brown color, like tea. The other was a pale, shining gold. Dicey could see the points on the queen’s crown and the flowered embroidery along the foot of her robe. The knights rode rearing horses, and on their shields Dicey could see dragons with long twisting tails.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, crouching down to see closer.

  “Thank you,” he answered, and she knew he had made it himself.

  “How much is it?” she asked.

  “Six hundred.”

  Dicey looked up, then asked how much the Mexican set was. “Fifteen,” he told her.

  She told him she’d take one, and said she wished she could buy the beautiful set.

  “I’m not sure I want to sell it,” he told her.

  “You could make another,” Dicey told him. “Couldn’t you?” she asked.

  “Of course, but each time — the wood is different. Look,” he said. He pulled over a rack on which hung a dozen bracelets, each made out of a circle of wood. The man was right, each bracelet was entirely different, even though they were all exactly the same. On some of them the grain of the wood made designs that looked almost like carvings. Some of the woods were light and shone as if from inside; some glowed golden, as if late afternoon sunlight was shining on them; and some were dark and had a gleam like a field freshly turned over for planting. She reached out to touch them.

  There was one she especially liked, a ring of golden wood with a dark grain. “Oak,” he told her, before she asked. He took it off the rack and handed it to her.

  Dicey held it in her fingers, feeling how smooth it was and studying the deep glow in the wood. She wondered if anyone ever made boats out of such wood as this.

  “It’s four dollars,” he said. “Try it on.”

  “Oh, it’s not for me,” Dicey told him. She was thinking of Maybeth, and she didn’t know why because she had already bought a present for Maybeth. But the wood seemed so beautiful to her that she knew Maybeth would like it. Then she recognized the similarity: the wood had the colors of Momma’s hair. And if she was going to spend fifteen dollars on James, she should spend that much on Maybeth too, because that was fair. And she could feel how Maybeth would like the bracelet and would always keep it. She decided to buy it.

  While he added up her bill, Dicey looked around the shop. He made boxes in all sizes, the way he made bracelets. They were simple boxes with lids that fit down over the tops. But all of them had been constructed out of a variety of woods, and the woods seemed to fit together as the pieces of a patchwork quilt do. The different woods talked together, Dicey thought, looking at them; only it was more like singing in harmony than conversation. The man also made little figures of raccoons and birds, rabbits and — something that had to be a chicken pecking at the ground for food.

  “Wait,” Dicey said, crouching down again. He came slowly back towards her. “Is that a chicken?”

  He looked where she was looking. He took a maddeningly long time doing anything, answering any questions, Dicey thought. “Do you want to hold it?” Dicey nodded.

  Dicey held the little carving in her hand. It made her smile, the busyness of that chicken, determined to eat and eat and do nothing else. The chicken looked cross, its feathers ruffled and fluffed out. It wouldn’t be easy to live with that chicken.

  He watched her studying it. “I meant to carve a jay,” he said slowly, “but that piece of wood just wanted to be a chicken.”

  “I think,” Dicey said, “that’s the way with chickens.”

  “It’s four dollars too,” he said. “Do you want it?”

  “Yes,” Dicey said quickly, thinking of Sammy and how he would laugh. The man turned the carving over and pulled off a price tag. Dicey thought the price tag said something with two numbers, and she looked at his face. He was rolling the tiny square of paper in his hand. He knew she’d seen.

  “You liked it, you saw right away what it is,” he told her.

  “My little brother keeps pestering us to get him some chickens,” Dicey explained.

  “Ah, then you don’t live around here. In the city.”

  “No, in Maryland.”

  “Maryland? What are you doing up here?”

  Dicey stared at him. “My momma’s in the hospital,” she said shortly.

  “And you’re doing some Christmas shopping while your father visits her.”

  “It’s my grandmother,” Dicey told him. She didn’t have to tell him anything, and she didn’t really want to. But it was so hard to say — she was talking about as slowly as he did. If it was so hard to say she thought she ought to say it. Because not saying it wasn’t going to change anything.

  “Everything going to be all right?” he inquired. He didn’t ask to be nosy, but to tell her he sympathized with her. Dicey heard that in his voice.

  “No,” she answered, her throat tight and the pieces of her heart squeezing again.

  He put down his sales pad and lay his pencil beside it. He folded his fingers together, and Dicey could see how they were covered with cuts. Old cuts and new ones. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said slowly. Dicey nodded and blinked her eyelids, fast. “I’m sorry the world is the way it is and always has been. It’s not easy, is it?”

  “How could it be?” Dicey snapped.

  “I can imagine how it could. Can’t you?” he asked her seriously.

  And Dicey could, but it wasn’t true, so that didn’t make any difference.

  “I tell myself,” he said, “that it’s like the wood. Sometimes, things just have to happen, it just has to be the way it turns out. Are you old enough to have something you tell yourself?”

  That surprised Dicey. She swallowed, remembered, and nodded her head. “I saw a tombstone, once. It had — Home is the hunter, home from the hill, and the sailor home from the sea.”

  He studied her face for a long time, and then didn’t say any more, as if she had answered his question and he didn’t have anything else to ask. Dicey didn’t wonder about this, as she paid her bill and took the bag into her hand. She had just made up her mind about something.

  Momma was going to come home with them. No matter what, she wouldn’t leave Momma up here.

  Dicey dropped the packages off at the motel and ate a quick supper in the coffee shop. Then she went back to the hospital. She didn’t ask anybody permission, she just got right on the elevator and rode up to the fourth floor. She went right through the big doors and down the
aisle to where Momma lay.

  Gram sat in the same chair, holding onto the same hand. She was talking softly, but she stopped when Dicey stood at the foot of the bed.

  “She’s coming home with us,” Dicey said.

  “I know,” Gram answered, tired. “I’ve promised her. I promise you.”

  Dicey sat down in her own chair. She unbuttoned her coat. “You should have something to eat,” she told Gram. “It’s getting dark. It’s cold.”

  Gram stood up stiffly. Dicey took Momma’s limp hand in her two chilly ones. She began to talk to Momma’s empty moon face.

  When Gram got back she told Dicey she was going to spend the night at the hospital. Preston would walk Dicey back to the motel, and she was waiting downstairs, and Dicey should hurry because the nurse had stayed late just to see Dicey safely back. Dicey didn’t argue. Preston, hurrying beside her down the dark streets, asked if she’d be worried about staying alone in a motel room. Dicey wasn’t worried, why should be be? She watched TV for a while, but it was stupid so she turned it off and got into her bed. Then she hopped out to put the box with Gram’s gloves in it into the pocket of her jacket, so she wouldn’t forget them in the morning. Back in bed, she turned out the light and slept.

  WHEN DICEY arrived back at the hospital the next morning, the receptionist hurried down the hall to meet her before she had a chance to get on the elevator. But all the woman said was, “Are you going up?”

  Dicey didn’t answer, just stepped into the machine.

  Preston stood with Dr. Epstein when she got off, and they, too, seemed to be waiting for her. But they didn’t say anything.

  Gram sat by Momma’s bed, her face gray with fatigue. But she wasn’t holding Momma’s hand and Momma wasn’t breathing under the smooth sheets. “She’s dead now,” Gram said. “At about dawn. I wanted to wait until you could make your farewells.”

  Dicey nodded. She came up close to kiss Momma’s cool forehead and to brush her sad, short hair. She felt Gram move out of the cubicle as she whispered good-bye from all of them. When Dicey was back in the pale yellow aisle with Gram, she saw that Gram was just standing there. As if Gram didn’t know what to do.

  “Oh Gram,” Dicey said. Whatever Gram might think, Dicey went up and put her arms all the way around her. They were of a height, she noticed. They didn’t cry, they just stood there, holding onto one another, holding close. Dicey could feel how strong Gram’s arms were, and how strong were her own. Strong and warm.

  “You have to let go,” Gram said harshly, in Dicey’s ear. But she didn’t loosen her arms. “You have to and I have to.”

  Dicey understood. It was Momma they had to let go of.

  “I don’t want to,” she answered softly.

  Gram pulled her head back so she looked into Dicey’s face. “Neither do I,” she said. “But I will, and so will you. Because if you don’t — let go — it can make you crazy.” Dicey just stood there. “Are you listening to me, girl?” Gram demanded.

  Dicey nodded. Gram’s hand patted her back and that reminded Dicey. “I got you some gloves,” she said. She took the box out of her pocket and handed it to Gram.

  “Why’d you do a thing like that?” Gram demanded. “You don’t know my size, and where’d you get the money?”

  Dicey understood Gram’s anger and let it wash over her. “Open it,” she told Gram. They were standing in the watery light as if they were alone. Gram took the top off the box.

  “Well,” Gram said. She took the gloves gently out of the box and stroked the leather with her fingertips. Dicey watched. She knew now why she had wanted to give them to Gram right away: she wanted to give Gram some of the feelings of yesterday afternoon. Because yesterday afternoon, buying presents and thinking about her family, Dicey had felt better. She hadn’t forgotten, but she had remembered other things as well.

  “Yes, I like them, you know that,” Gram snapped. She slipped one on, then pulled it off. She folded the gloves carefully and put them into her purse. Then she reached out to take Dicey’s hand. “Let’s finish this business and get home,” she said.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE FOUR OF THEM stood in the hallway, Gram and Dicey, Preston, Dr. Epstein. Nobody knew what to say.

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Epstein said at last. His hands moved nervously, and Dicey bet he would have liked to light one of his little cigars. His eyes flickered away from theirs. “It’s for the best. Some of our cases linger on for years.”

  Gram cut him off. “I appreciate all you’ve done,” she said briskly. “And you, as well,” she said to Preston.

  “Now about the arrangements,” Dr. Epstein began.

  “We’d like to take her back with us,” Gram said.

  A frown crossed his face. “But I understood that she lived in Massachusetts. I understood when she was first identified. . . .” His voice tapered off, then ceased. “Ordinarily, Mrs. Tillerman, the charity cases are given over to medical research when. . . .”

  Dicey felt the heat of Gram’s anger and saw, out of the corner of her eye, Gram’s chin lift.

  “Yes?” Gram asked.

  The doctor did not like this conversation.

  “The expense,” he said. “The undertaker, shipping the coffin — down to Maryland, isn’t it? I don’t think you can pay for it — unless, of course, our records are mistaken.”

  “How much would it be?” Gram asked.

  “I don’t think it could cost you less than seven hundred dollars,” Dr. Epstein answered. His mouth pursed, as if he didn’t like to talk about money.

  Dicey’s heart fell. Seven hundred dollars. They would never have that much money, not for something that wasn’t necessary. Then she noticed something: her heart was back in one piece. How had that happened? It wasn’t that she didn’t feel sad. She felt sad enough, and sad in a way she’d never felt before. Because now Momma was really gone for always. Dicey must have let go and never known it.

  “Unless she were cremated,” Preston said. She spoke to the doctor, as if she were suggesting that to him. He shrugged. “If you were to have her cremated and carried her with you,” Preston said to Gram in her gentle voice.

  “Not to mention burial expenses,” Dr. Epstein remarked.

  “In Maryland, a cremated body can be buried wherever you want,” Gram announced. “Thank you,” she said to Preston. “I wonder if you can recommend an undertaker.”

  “You’ll see to all this?” Dr. Epstein asked the nurse. She nodded, not speaking. He shook hands with Gram. He nodded to Dicey and strode importantly off down the hall.

  Preston gave them the name of an undertaker. She didn’t say anything sympathetic, didn’t apologize, didn’t try to make them feel better. She just helped, as much as she could, telling them how to find the undertaker’s, telling them that the undertaker would come to pick up Momma and thanking them for coming to be with Momma.

  When they stepped out onto the sidewalk, Gram halted. She opened her purse, took out her new gloves, and put them on her hands. She breathed in deeply. “The air stinks,” she remarked. They set off together.

  The undertaker, who wore a dark suit and a solemn expression, received them in his office. He sat behind his desk and filled out forms while Gram gave him information. “I should tell you,” he said, “that Miss Preston called. She thought you would want to expedite the cremation. I have already dispatched a vehicle to pick up the deceased.”

  “That’s right,” Gram said.

  Dicey tried to think of Momma as the deceased and not as Momma. Gram reached out to take her hand and held onto it. Dicey held on back.

  “What will the charge be,” Gram asked.

  “There is a minimum charge of three hundred and fifty dollars. Then the urn, of course.”

  Dicey looked up, surprised.

  “In which to place the ashes,” he explained to her. “We have a good selection. If you will choose the one you want, you can return to pick her up at —” he looked at his wristwatch and consulted a paper on
his desk ” — three o’clock.”

  But when they studied the urns, Dicey couldn’t see any she wanted, not for Momma. Some were tall china ones with dark flowers on them. Some were cold metals, silver and brass. Some were plain white china and looked like vases. Dicey didn’t say anything, however. It wasn’t as if she could pay for any one of them. She stood back and waited.

  “No,” Gram muttered to herself. “No and no and no.” She looked at Dicey and spoke grimly. “Not for Liza.”

  “But if we’re supposed to let go,” Dicey said, because it was what she had been thinking to herself.

  “I’m willing to let go,” Gram declared, “because I have to. But I am not going to lose my grip on — on what’s right.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Dicey pointed out.

  “I don’t care. Haven’t you got any ideas, girl?”

  Well, of course, Dicey did. She had an idea of a box made from many different kinds of wood. She had an idea of the warm brown tones, of the careful workmanship, of the patient sanding smooth. She had an idea of something made by those slow hands, those hands marked by the work they did. But she had no idea of what such a box would cost.

  “I was in a store yesterday,” she said to Gram. She was going to say more, but Gram cut her off:

  “Good. I’ll have to explain the delay. We should hurry, I expect.”

  The wood store wasn’t empty when they got there, so they waited for the man to slowly serve his other customers. One of the people was buying goblets, another was trying to decide about the big train in the window. Dicey was glad the store was busy.

  While they waited, she showed Gram the boxes she’d been talking about. “You’re right,” Gram said. “I’m glad you were with me. I’m so defeated, I might just have taken one of those horrible things.”

  Dicey stared at Gram. Defeated? Well, she guessed she could understand that.

  The man recognized Dicey and greeted Gram as if he recognized her, too.

  “We are looking for a small box,” Gram said.