Forty-three dollars.
That was all I had until payday.
The stack of unpaid bills beside the toaster had grown again. I turned them around so I wouldn’t have to look at the envelopes.
For Noah’s lunch, I packed the last slices of bread into a sandwich, added a bruised apple from the fruit bowl, and tucked a handful of crackers into a folded napkin. It wasn’t much, but it was what I could manage.
As I zipped the lunchbox closed, Noah appeared in the doorway, still wearing his pajamas.
“Did you eat yet?” he asked.
I smiled.
“I’ll eat after you leave.”
“You said that yesterday.”
“I did eat yesterday.”
He didn’t look convinced.
Lately he had been watching me differently—more carefully, almost as if he was trying to solve a puzzle.
I made him toast and reminded him to eat everything because he was growing. He laughed softly and repeated the phrase back to me.
When it was time for school, he held his lunchbox against his chest as if it contained something precious.
At the bus stop, just before climbing aboard, he looked up at me and asked a question that felt strange at the time.
“Mom, you’re going to eat lunch today, right? A real lunch?”
I promised him I would.
The truth was, I had no idea if I would.
After the bus disappeared around the corner, I sat on a bench for a while, lost in my thoughts. My phone rang around 7:30.
The caller was Noah’s teacher, Mariella.
