The kitchen light was still yellow that morning, just as it had been every morning before the sun came through the windows. I packed two sandwiches, apple slices, a thermos, and a small note beneath the napkin. I had done it for years. Elliot, our nine-year-old son, sat on the counter swinging his heels against the cabinet. That morning, he finally told me to stop making the lunches.

He had seen his father, Marcus, leave the food beside a trash can near the school bus route. Then Marcus would change into the charcoal suit he had worn at our wedding and climb into a woman’s dark blue car. The next morning, instead of asking questions, I followed him. At 6:48, Marcus carefully placed the lunch beside the corner and drove away. Fifteen minutes later, the blue car arrived. I followed it across the city until we reached a building I had never seen before. A woman stepped outside, looked at me, and quietly asked, “Do you still think your husband is a construction worker?”