They laughed when my son walked across the stage at his graduation ceremony with a newborn in his arms – one woman whispered: “Just like his mother…”

Instead, you walked so slowly towards the kitchen that everyone’s eyes turned to you.

You opened the refrigerator door. In the upper left compartment were your things, neatly stored in clear containers, labeled with your name and sealed with strips of blue tape. Greek yogurt. Two salad bowls. A small dish of grilled chicken. Strawberries. Almond milk. The rest was meager, haphazardly thrown together, and unusable for dinner. Half a bottle of ketchup, a few tortillas, two lonely onions, and the leftovers from Mauricio’s lunch three days earlier, which he’d never thrown away.

“There,” you said, stepping aside so everyone could see. “This is my food. The food I paid for. The food he forbade me to keep.”

The atmosphere in the room changed again.

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