Page 7 of Resilience on Canvas

Robert pursed his lips. It really did seem like Henry was regretting the way things had turned out.

Robert supposed there wasn’t no sense in staying mad.

Anger had a way of eating a person up inside, feasting on their happiness ’til there wasn’t nothing left.

And though Robert hadn’t felt happy too often lately, there were still moments of sunshine.

Like when the twins were playing together without fighting and Clara was reading to May on the sofa and their pop wasn’t home.

And so, Robert was free to sit in his favorite chair and pretend that everything wasn’t so Goddamn heavy.

He wanted to hold on to that. If he stayed sore at Henry, then maybe every time he’d see Clara tending to the kids, he’d be too busy being upset over the thought that she should have been tending to her own kids—kids she ought to have had with Henry—to enjoy those fleeting moments of bliss. It was best to let it go.

“Wanna head back?” Robert asked.

Henry only nodded.

The two began the long walk back to the store.

Robert shoved his hands in his pockets. Henry copied.

One of Robert’s hands found the rag he’d been using earlier, and he began rolling the fabric between his fingers.

It may have been a little breezy that morning, with the wind kicking up puffs of useless powdery soil every once in a while, but it had turned out to be a pretty nice afternoon. Blue skies for miles.

Robert and Henry walked for a few more minutes in silence.

At first, Robert enjoyed it. He liked listening to the faraway sounds of livestock and the rustling of the surviving patches of bluegrass moving in the breeze, one that was too soft to send plumes of powder into the sky.

But then the silence started to gnaw at him.

It wasn’t right to leave things with Henry this way.

“So...” Robert racked his brain to try to come up with something else they could talk about on the way back to town. “How’s workin’ for yer uncle?”

Henry startled a bit like Robert had yanked him out of his thoughts.

“Oh, uhm, fine, I suppose,” he said. “It’s easy enough.”

Robert nodded a few times, waiting for Henry to say something else. But Henry seemed to be too frazzled to expand on that.

“Plenty of penny candies to munch on, huh?” Robert tried.

“Yeah, maybe. I mean, I’m not much for candy, though,” he said, his cheeks reddening a little. “I like salty things? Potatuh pancakes and such?”

Funny how Henry’s voice was hitching up like that. Almost like he was requesting permission to like potato pancakes or something.

“Yeah, I like those, too,” Robert said. “Potatuh pancakes might even be my favorite meal. But I really am partial to sweets. Give me some chocolate or one of them honey bars, and I’m happy as a... as a...”

“Clam?”

Robert cocked one of his eyebrows. Was that the phrase he had been looking for?

“Ain’t that like a fish or somethin’?” he asked.

Henry replied, “Kinda? I think they’re kind of like fish with shells?”

“Happy as a clam,” Robert repeated. “Are clams particularly happy?”

“Oh, uhm, I ain’t sure, actually. It’s a sayin’ I hear my mom use sometimes.

I think my Gammy and Grandad might have taught it to her before they passed.

They were from the coast. Somewhere near the ocean.

I can’t remember which ocean, though, like if they were from California, maybe, or New York, or some other state? Sorry.”

“No need to say sorry. I was only wonderin’ why those fish were known for bein’ happy,” Robert said.

He couldn’t help but imagine what it’d be like to live somewhere close to the ocean.

He’d never seen that much water before. “I suppose the sayin’ makes sense, though.

I like bein’ in the water a lot myself. When I was little, we went to swim in some of the lakes sometimes.

Maybe I really would be happier if I was a fish. ”

Henry huffed a soft laugh, a faint blush creeping across his cheeks.

It was a little endearing, the way Henry’s cheeks kept turning pink like that.

“Have you ever been to the ocean?” Robert asked.

“Nah. We barely ever leave Guymon now.”

“Yeah, I haven’t been, neither,” Robert said. “Maybe someday. And then I’ll report back on how happy them clams seem. How’s that?”

Henry’s face broke into the biggest smile, one that made Robert’s heart flutter.

“Yeah, I’d like that,” he said.

Robert smiled back, his heart still fluttering like mad. God, what was wrong with him? Until that morning, Henry was supposed to marry Clara. Robert couldn’t let himself start liking the man in that kind of way.

Henry sure was handsome, though.

Robert tore his eyes away, trying to rein in the unwelcome bout of nervousness or whatever this was only to spy some kind of huge black-and-brown cloud moving toward them. It was so massive that it took up most of the whole horizon to the north.

“Holy hell,” he said, pointing to it. “Hen, look.”

Henry turned, and his mouth fell agape.

“Dear Lord,” Henry blurted out. “What in the world?”

“We better start runnin’,” Robert said, taking hold of Henry’s sleeve and pulling him forward. “Gotta find us some kind of shelter.”

“Right.” Henry stumbled, not yet having taken his eyes off the sky. “Shelter.”

Robert looked up at the rolling cloud, too.

Jesus Christ, it was enormous. And it was coming.

Fast. Ain’t no way they’d make it back to town in time.

Fear trickled up the back of Robert’s neck, making the little hairs there stand on end.

He started frantically searching for shelter, but they were in the middle of a fucking field. Where would they even go?

Finally, he spotted a little farmhouse a couple of hundred feet from where they were.

“There,” Robert said, stopping and pointing over to it. “Let’s try there.”

Henry’s eyebrows shot up. “What, knock on some random person’s—”

“What choice do we have?” Robert clipped, tugging on Henry’s sleeve some more as he started toward the farmhouse. “Come on. ”

Once Henry began following, Robert released his hold, and the two of them sprinted to their potential shelter. When they reached it, Robert pounded on the door.

“Hello? Anyone there?” He banged on it a few more times. “Let us in. There’s one of them black blizzards comin’. It’s a huge one. We’ll probably suffocate out here.”

No one answered. Dammit. Robert turned to find Henry. Out of the corner of his eye, he could still see the plume heading for them, large and ominous, big enough that Robert had the fleeting thought that maybe the Goddamn world was ending.

“Hey, uhm, Robert,” Henry said from in front of one of the windows. He was cupping his hands over it to see inside. “It’s practically empty. Doesn’t look like no one lives here no more.”

Robert tried the handle. It wasn’t locked.

“Hurry!” he said, pulling open the door. “Come on!”

The moment they were inside, Robert started searching the kitchen cupboards for something big enough to plug up the gaps where the dust could come in, like the thin strip of space between the floorboards and the front door, and Henry rushed over to shut one of the back windows, one that was still halfway open.

“It’s stuck!” Henry cried out. “I can’t close it!”

Slamming the cupboard shut, Robert went over to help. Together, he and Henry began pushing on the window rail, and for the first couple of tries, it wouldn’t budge.

Robert let out a yell, throwing his weight into it, and thankfully, that seemed to be enough. The window closed with a thick thud that reverberated through the house.

Nodding, Robert turned back to Henry, who sucked in a breath through his teeth and then began sucking on his finger.

“Splinter?” Robert asked.

“I think so,” Henry said, shaking his hand. “Dang. ”

Robert clapped the poor son of a bitch on the back and then resumed his search.

The moment he finally found a ratty old towel balled up beneath the ratty old couch in the living room of the ratty old house, everything went black.