Now . . . I’m sitting in the grocery store parking lot. My kid is in the backseat playing with her shoelaces, and god dammit, hunger is ripping our guts apart.

“Stay here, honey.” I look at her naïve little face in the rear view mirror. “I’ll be right back.”

I shove my hands into my jacket, thumbing a crumpled five dollar bill, and jog through the glass doors.

The bakers have set fresh French bread on the rack inside. I take a deep breath. The smell rolls my stomach. No—can’t do it. I grab a bag of day-old buns off the wall and hustle past the deli, stuffing a couple of ketchup packets in my pocket.

There’s a line at Starbucks. The pimple-faced girl behind the counter dumps caramel into coffee drinks while sniggering teenagers fuck around on their phones in line.

Okay, forget them. I snag two bananas from the fruit bins. The next aisle over, a can of green beans. Then a pound of ground beef from the cooler—the kind with more fat. It makes the burgers juicier. It costs half as much.

Self-checkout is empty except for the orange-haired old lady at the front picking at her nails. She glances over, I nod . . . she’s back to her manicure.

I scan the beans and the buns and already I’m at $1.68 and I’m thinking what do I do with this four bucks of ground beef? I look back to the lady. She won’t care. And I—well, I don’t have a choice.

I set the bananas on top of the beef and put it all on the scale. “4011,” I mumble and punch in the code. I can feel my heart beating. Smooth as I can, I slip the $2.56 worth of, um, bananas into my bag.

I press the $5 bill flat between my callused hands and feed it into the machine. Yes, I’ll take my 18¢ change.

On the way out the orange-haired lady mutters, “Have a nice night.”

I hurry back to the car and slide into the front seat and say, “we’re having hamburgers tonight, sweetie.” My little girl squeals. I put it in reverse and get the hell out of there.