Her family lived three bus stops away in a narrow apartment above a laundromat.
Her mother stretched every dollar until it felt insulting.
There were nights when dinner was toast, or canned beans, or whatever could be coaxed out of a nearly empty pantry with salt and hope.
School lunch was not a convenience for Victoria.
It was security.
That day she sat on a low concrete ledge during lunch and unwrapped a sandwich from wax paper.
When she looked up, the boy at the fence was watching her hand, not her face.
That was what she remembered years later.
He was trying very hard to be polite about starving.
Victoria stood, walked over, and pushed the sandwich through an opening near the bottom of the fence.
He blinked at her as if kindness had taken him by surprise.
‘Take it,’ she said.
He did.
He ate too fast at first, then slower, like he was embarrassed by what hunger was making him do.
