Page 2 of Resilience on Canvas

“Do you mean a bother for me? Or for him?”

“Neither.”

“I’m supposed to take care of you. I made Ma a promise, remember?” Robert asked, wiping the last of the soil from the table.Flinging the rag over his shoulder, he said, “And this union is me takin’ care of you. We barely have enough to eat here. You know that. And Pop...” Robert rolled his eyes, a flicker of irritation flaring to life in his chest. “Well, he’s Goddamn useless nowadays.”

“I’ll feel so bad leavin’ you by yer lonesome.”

“Lonesome,” Robert repeated, wrinkling his nose. “I like bein’ by myself.”

It wasn’treallytrue. But it was true enough. Robert would miss his sister. But he’d be busy taking care of the little ones.

Clara said, “Alright, well, you can talk to him, but be nice.”

“Iamnice!” Robert protested, throwing up his hands. “When am I not nice?”

Clara pursed her lips, clearly trying to hide her smile.

“Stop that!” Robert scolded, his tone turning a touch playful.

Which only made Clara smile in earnest.

“When’s the last time you had a friend?” she teased. “It’s been forever.”

Well, that was true. Robert kept to himself, save for exchanging pleasantries with a couple of neighbors now and then. He barely even talked to folks when they went to church.

“Come on now, what time would I have for friends?” he said. “I’m busy tryin’ to keep us from starvin’! Busy runnin’ a whole Goddamn farm!”

Clara hummed good-naturedly and then turned to fetch the rest of the things they’d need for supper from one of the cupboards, leaving Robert to sit with the outlandishness of that statement of his. Running a whole farm. What a load of horseshit that was. Robert may have been plenty busy with the chores, but those chores no longer consisted of plowing and planting. Instead, most of his time was spent tending to their pitiful little garden, foraging for dandelion root, and shoveling. Lots and lots of shoveling. Dust storms had made a mockery of farm work.

After Robert finished cleaning up a bit, he and Clara worked together to make corned beef casserole for supper. Clara was busy stirring everything together—canned peas, canned corn, corned beef, lemon juice, and vinegar—and Robert was about to set the table when their siblings burst in through the front door. The boys immediately started squabbling over a piece of penny candy while May began pulling a chair over to the stovetop so that she could “help” cook. With a tired sigh, Robert reached up to massage his temples and then started over toward his brothers.

“Hush up, now,” he said, kneeling to meet their eyes. “Pop will be home soon. And Iknowhe won’t be happy to hear this kind of ruckus. Where’d you two even find that? We ain’t got no money for candy.”

“Mrs. Jones had ’em,” Thomas said.

“Gave one to everybody,” Peter said.

Robert shook his head. “Well, then, why’s there only one?”

“Thomas lost his.”

“There’s a hole in my pack!”

“Still means you lost it.”

“Not on purpose!”

“Nobody loses nothing on purpose, stupid!”

And back and forth they went with their bickering. Robert ran a hand over his face. He looked over his shoulder, back at Clara and May.

“Mrs. Sherwood had some for our class, too,” May said.

“Well, then, where’s yers?”

“Gave it to Jasper,” she said with a shrug.

“Aw, May, that was nice of you,” Clara said, still stirring the pot. “What made you do that?”

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