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“I am, Mommy,” chirps in Jenny about the hunger question. “Can I help?” she then offers. Everything is better now that Clare is home. On her work days, the children must spend the time on their own. She is fortunate, though, to have James to look after his younger sister. He is a caring, understanding eighteen year old who is hardened beyond his years. He misses going to school and having a normal teenage life but never complains or causes his mother any problems.

James sees his purpose in life as keeping things as regular as he can for his younger sister and in helping his mother. As with others his age, complaining and crying had exited early in his childhood. The young now learn early the lesson of age, that one needs to stand up to the trials of life, that action not complaint makes things better, lessons being learned the hard way.

Clare prepares a simple meal and sets the table. After calling Jenny and James over, they sit down together. “Can you move the candle to the center of the table?” she asks her son. Reaching behind him, James pulls it from the counter and places it near so they can see to eat.

“This is the only one left, Mom,” he says.

“Okay, dear, I don’t have work tomorrow so we can go over to Mr. Brannan’s in the morning. I told him last week that we were going to need some more candles and he said that he had a shipment coming in.”

“Could we see if he has any crayons or markers, too?” asks Jenny. “I want to do some more drawing and the others are so short and worn out, they don’t work anymore.”

“We can pick up a few things,” their mother cautions, “but he’s been charging more and I only have the two large bottles of water to trade now. If he’ll take those for the candles, maybe I could spend a little bit on other things. Is there anything that you might want to get, James?”

Looking up and gazing into his mother’s eyes, he only shakes his head. “No, not really, I don’t need anything.” A statement that wasn’t true but true to his nature. James has come to not expect much from life and in that way protects himself from its simply unavoidable disappointments. It can be disappointment at not having a life that now only exists in memory and in pictures from previous generations. There are no Friday night football games, no cruising with friends, no summer weekends at the lake, no dreams of ‘what do I want to be when I grow up?’ There is only a day to day dreariness, a sorrowful sameness, and few opportunities in these limited lives.

“Are you sure?” his mother asks again, reaching over to rest her hand on his. “Maybe he will have something new that you would like, we can look tomorrow.”