I can still see her shy smile as clearly as if it were yesterday. She sat two rows over in our fifth-grade classroom—quiet, polite, the kind of girl teachers described as “sweet but reserved.” She laughed softly at other people’s jokes but rarely spoke unless someone spoke to her first. Every day at lunchtime, when the bell rang and the room filled with the rustle of lunchboxes and the smell of peanut butter sandwiches, she’d sit at her desk pretending to search through her bag. Eventually, she’d sigh and murmur the same words, “My mom forgot again.”
Most kids didn’t notice. Maybe they were too busy trading cookies or showing off the newest lunchbox toy. But I did notice. There was something about the way she said it—not angry, not embarrassed, just quietly accepting—that made my stomach twist. That night, I told my mom about it. She didn’t ask many questions, just listened, nodded, and said, “Tomorrow, take this too.” The next morning, she packed two lunches—one for me, and one “just in case.”
From that day on, it became our unspoken routine. When the lunch bell rang, I’d hand her the extra bag without making a big deal of it, and she’d give me that same grateful half-smile before we started talking about whatever fifth graders thought was important—movies, math homework, or what we wanted to be when we grew up. She wanted to be a teacher. I said I wanted to build airplanes.
Continue reading next page…