I looked down at the sealed lunchbox in my hands.
“I shouldn’t be here. I know how it looks.”
“Why do you have Alice’s lunchbox?”
His eyes dropped to the pink box.
“The boy grabbed the brown bag she brought me today and threw it into the dirt. Alice picked it up, but the food was ruined. So she gave me her lunch, but I couldn’t eat it.”
“Which boy? Alice never said a word about any boy.”
I thought I was about to get all the answers.
Instead, the mystery only deepened.
“Why do you have Alice’s lunchbox?”
“I know she didn’t.” His eyes filled again. “That’s why I’m standing here.”
I called for my husband.
Wade appeared behind me in the doorway, confusion written across his face.
“Who is this?”
“The man Alice has been feeding,” I whispered. “He came to warn us.”
“He came to warn us.”
“Come inside. Please.”
This time the homeless man obeyed.
He sat stiffly on the edge of our couch, his hands folded like he was afraid to touch anything.
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
I still thought the boy was the most important part of his story.
“A few weeks now. There’s a boy, a loud one, popular with the others. He started calling her names when he saw her giving me the food.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“What kind of names?”
The man hesitated.
“Dirty. Poor. They’d laugh. Some of them threw things.”
My chest ached.
“And she never told me,” I murmured. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
“Because there’s more.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
The homeless man looked up, and something in his eyes made my heart stop.
Wade leaned forward.
“What do you mean, more?”
“I think you need to hear that from your daughter.” He swallowed hard. “But what she’s doing isn’t an accident. She’s been making a choice every day, and she’s paying for it.”
“She’s been making a choice every day, and she’s paying for it.”
Wade stood and paced to the window, his jaw clenched tight.
“She’s eight years old,” he said. “Eight.”
“That’s why I came,” the man went on. “I’ve watched a lot of people walk past me and pretend I wasn’t there. Your daughter never did. Now she’s carrying something no child should carry alone.”
I sank down onto the arm of the chair, the lunchbox still cradled in my lap.
