The call came just after lunch, right in the middle of my shift. I wiped my hands on my apron and answered, already bracing myself. When the secretary said, “The teacher would like to see you this afternoon,” my stomach dropped. I knew before she finished the sentence.
I barely made it through the rest of the day. All I could think about was the same fear that had been following me for months—the quiet dread that someone would finally notice how thin our lives had become. How carefully I stretched groceries. How often I told my son I wasn’t hungry so he could have more. How proud he was of his little lunchbox, even when I knew it wasn’t always full.
