I Ate the Crusts Off My Daughter’s Sandwich

Dear Delyara, She came home from school and said she wasn’t hungry enough to finish it. So I stood at the counter and ate the crusts. Peanut butter. Slightly warm from her backpack. One bite, then another, while she talked to me about somebody crying in class and somebody else getting moved on the behavior chart. And all at once I felt this ache I couldn’t explain. Because I have spent years eating around other people’s lives like this — leftovers, edges, bits, the parts that remain after everybody else has been fed first. It wasn’t about the sandwich. It was about how easy it has become to meet myself only after the day has already gone through everyone else. I smiled and kept listening to her story. Inside, I felt very tired and very old.