Sliced apple.
Juice in a box.
Cookies in a plastic pouch.
All in a matching lunch box.
Twenty-two years before.
A sandwich bag from the cafeteria.
A yogurt snack for fifty cents.
A fruit cup in the back of the refrigerator.
But mostly empty stomachs.
My parents were not uncaring or neglectful, but I never remember anyone caring that I didn't really get a lunch at school. After 12 years of conditioning, it became normal that I found the best lunch table for my friends. They went to the lunch line; I munched on something I found in the pantry or back of the refrigerator. During the middle school years, I gave a friend fifty cents to buy me a yogurt. This ended at fifteen, when I came lactose intolerant.
Mostly, I just did without.
If I complained, I don't remember.
But when you are a parent, you try to make everything that you experienced as a child better. That included realizing my parents couldn't care less if I ate as long as I wasn't around to remind them I was hungry.
So forget the divorce. Forget when I'm too in my wine to remember if you've taken a bath, or when I lose my temper because you have dropped food on the ground, or when I have to work when you have a school play or soccer game.
I promise you will never be hungry at school.