Casualties by Elizabeth Marro

the sugar shack. If he woke up screaming, no one would hear him.

CHAPTER 6

    A couple of days later, it was morning and the air coming in the window smelled like rain even though the sun was already climbing. Big Ruth sat across from Robbie at the old oak table in front of a cold piece of toast and lukewarm tea. She wore a sweater the color of a peacock’s feathers, all blues, greens, purples. Her pants were red. The older she got, she’d told him, the more color she wanted in her life.
    He lifted his can of Coke as if he were toasting her and said, “Nice feathers today, BR.” She beamed at him as he sipped his soda.
    â€œVonnie called yesterday,” his great-grandmother said. Her tone was cautious, hopeful. “She wants to bring the kids over.” Robbie’s calm began to thin at the edges. She wanted some kind of family reunion. He hadn’t seen his stepmother or his half siblings in years, although both Justin and Luanne had written letters to him in Iraq. He’d wanted to write back but never could come up with the right thing to say.
    â€œâ€™Kay,” he said to his great-grandmother, although he wasn’tsure it was. He just wanted the warmth he was feeling to keep going. He wanted to please her.
    She gave him another big smile, which made her bridge slip a little. She pushed it back with her hand, and Robbie looked down so she would think he hadn’t noticed. He picked up his fork and scraped the last of some scrambled eggs off his plate.
    â€œYou still look hungry. Let Kevin scramble you some more eggs,” she said.
    â€œYou always said I looked hungry even when I was a fat slob,” Robbie told her. He reached for his can of Coke.
    â€œYou were never fat! I never understood why it was a crime to eat. I miss it now.” She gestured toward the half-eaten toast on her plate. “I eat more than this and the gas just about kills me and everyone else.”
    Robbie caught Kevin’s eye from across the kitchen. His uncle, slouched now against the sink with a mug of coffee in his hand, grinned and shook his head. Time seemed to slip for a few seconds. Any minute now Ruthie would come down the stairs and start telling him to put on sunscreen and bug spray if he was going to go fishing all day.
    The desire to see his mother seized him. When he was a kid she’d show up on a morning like this in a baggy T-shirt and shorts, looking for a cup of coffee that was never strong enough for her. She never used to bother with makeup in New Hampshire, or her contacts. Her hair, a deeper red than Kevin’s, swung in a ponytail back then. His uncle might tug it gently as he passed by. Only he could get away with it. Just as Big Ruth was the only person who could tell his mother to sit down and expect that she would.
    Robbie used to love seeing her sit like a child across the table from him, as she read a paper or magazine or one of those files she always had with her. She looked like she was pretending to be an adult, the way he used to when he grabbed his great-grandmother’s glasses and put them on to make everyone laugh. Remembering his mother this way made his chest go soft inside.
    He pulled his cell phone from his pocket but stopped when he saw a text from her, all in capital letters:
WHEN R U COMING? R U OK?
He looked up to see Big Ruth’s eyes wide now, and eager, like a kid’s.
    â€œYou calling your mom? Tell her to get herself out here so we can all be together again.” She looked so hopeful that Robbie almost said yes, but if he called Ruth now, she’d know he’d lied to her about his leave.
    He shook his head at his great-grandmother. “Just a buddy,” he said. The softness inside him turned to guilt. His thumbs tapped out another lie:
all ok. Cll u sn.
The guilt thickened inside him. He got up without finishing his soda and told Kevin he’d meet him behind the house, where they were going to chop some wood.
    Over the