“He was jus’ standin’ there with the lights on ’im.”
“What’d he say? Can ya ’member what he says?” Tom said, “Sure. Casy said, ’You got no right to starve people.’ An’ then this heavy fella called him a red son-of-a-bitch. An’ Casy says, ’You don’ know what you’re a-doin’.’ An’ then this guy smashed ’im.”
Ma looked down. She twisted her hands together. “Tha’s what he said ’You don’ know what you’re doin’?”
“Yeah!”
Ma said, “I wisht Granma could a heard.”
“Ma—I didn’ know what I was a-doin’, no more’n when you take a breath. I didn’ even know I was gonna do it.”
“It’s awright. I wisht you didn’ do it. I wisht you wasn’ there. But you done what you had to do. I can’t read no fault on you.” She went to the stove and dipped a cloth in the heating dishwater. “Here,” she said. “Put that there on your face.”
He laid the warm cloth over his nose and cheek, and winced at the heat. “Ma, I’m a-gonna go away tonight. I can’t go puttin’ this on you folks.”
Ma said angrily, “Tom! They’s a whole lot I don’ un’erstan’. But goin’ away ain’t gonna ease us. It’s gonna bear us down.” And she went on, “They was the time when we was on the lan’. They was a boundary to us then. Ol’ folks died off, an’ little fellas come, an’ we was always one thing—we was the fambly—kinda whole and clear. An’ now we ain’t clear no more. I can’t get straight. They ain’t nothin’ keeps us clear. Al—he’s a hankerin’ an’ a-jibbitin’ to go off on his own. An’ Uncle John is jus’ a-draggin’ along. Pa’s lost his place. He ain’t the head no more. We’re crackin’ up, Tom. There ain’t no fambly now. An’ Rosasharn—” She looked around and found the girl’s wide eyes. “She gonna have her baby an’ they won’t be no fambly. I don’ know. I been a-tryin’ to keep her goin’. Winfiel’—what’s he gonna be, this-a-way? Gettin’ wild, an’ Ruthie too—like animals. Got nothin’ to trus’. Don’ go, Tom. Stay an’ help.”
“O.K.,” he said tiredly. “O.K., I shouldn’, though. I know it.” Ma went to her dishpan and washed the tin plates and dried them.