‘Steve,’ I nod, and that’s about all we’ll say to each other for the entire day. Saying each other’s name is the way he and I say hello. He always leaves the house early, including on Sundays. He’s here but he’s not. He’ll go to see his friends or go fishing or just disappear. He’ll leave the city if he wants. Go down south, where the water’s clean and a person passing by will acknowledge you. Not that Steve cares about being acknowledged. He works, he waits. That’s all. That’s Steve. He offers Mum and Dad to pay more than his board so they can stay ahead, but they won’t take it.

Too proud.

Too stubborn.

Dad says we’ll manage and that some work is just around the corner. But the corner never ends. It stretches and continues, and Mum drives herself into the ground.

‘Thanks.’

The day echoes past and that’s what Sarah says to me in the evening when I finally see her again. She comes into the lounge room just before dinner.

‘I mean it,’ she tells me softly, and there is something in her eyes that makes me think of The Old Man and the Sea, and how the old man’s patched sail looks like the flag of permanent defeat. That’s what Sarah’s eyes look like. The colour of defeat chokes her pupils, even though her nod and smile and uncomfortable sitting motion on the couch indicate that she is not finished yet. She will just carry on, like all of us.

Smile stubborn.

Smile with instinct, then lick your wounds in the darkest of dark corners. Trace the scars back to your own fingers and remember them.

At dinner, Rube comes in late, just before Steve.

This is how the Wolfe family looks at the table:

Our mother, eating politely.

Dad, feeding burnt sausage into his mouth but tasting unemployment. His face has healed from the busted pipe that smashed his jaw and ripped open his face. Yes, the injury has healed nicely, at least on the outside of his skin.

Sarah, concentrating on keeping it all down.

Me, watching everyone else.

Rube, swallowing more and more and smiling at something, even though we have an extra dirty piece of business to cater for very soon.

It’s Dad who brings it into the foreground.

‘Well?’ he says when we’re done. He looks at Rube and me.

Well what?

‘Well what?’ Rube asks, but both of us know what we have to do.