Read this excerpt from The Land.When I was a little boy, being sent off to the kitchen to eat or outside to play didn’t bother me, because Robert was always sent off with me. But then as we grew older, Robert was allowed to stay when the visitors came for their socializing, though at first he wouldn’t stay without me. Even his grandmother couldn’t make him stay. Robert’s grandma on his mama’s side always hated the fact that my daddy allowed Cassie and me to sit at his table and enjoy the life she felt was owed only to her daughter’s children. When the daughter died, her mother was there in my daddy’s house. Of course, I was only a baby at the time, but later I grew to know her hatred. She had stayed on in my daddy’s house and took over running it. I remember she was always hard on my mama, and on Cassie and me. When my daddy was away during mealtime, she would send Cassie and me from the table. When that happened, Robert always went with me, and she couldn’t make him come back.