The lunchbox hit the garbage can before nine-year-old Nora could stop him.
“Stop packing junk.”
Mark shoved the lid down.
Nora stared at the trash.
Inside was the sandwich she had made herself before school.
Her mother, Lisa, stood near the sink.
“Mark…”
“What?”
He turned.
“I’m teaching her.”
Nora kept both hands at her sides.
She had learned that crying made him angrier.
Mark opened the refrigerator.
“She’s old enough to understand rules.”
“I was hungry,” Nora whispered.
He looked over his shoulder.
“Then eat what we give you.”
The problem was that nobody had given her anything.
Lisa had worked an overnight nursing shift and returned home twenty minutes earlier.
Mark was supposed to prepare breakfast and lunch.
He hadn’t.
Nora knew better than to say that.
At school, she told her teacher she had forgotten her lunch.
It was easier.
Her best friend Mia split a sandwich with her.
That afternoon, Nora found a folded note inside her backpack.
COME SEE ME BEFORE YOU GO HOME.
Ms. Patel.
Nora’s stomach tightened.
She entered the classroom after dismissal.
