My Husband Cooked Dinner, and Minutes After My Son and I Ate, We Both Collapsed. I Played Dead on the Floor and Heard Him on the Phone: “Soon They’ll Both Be Gone”

I sealed the bag, pressing the air out, running my thumb hard along the seam.

Then I pushed it down deep into the back of the freezer, behind a half-empty package of frozen peas, where it disappeared into the frost and the ordinary clutter of a family’s frozen food.

“Are you saving it for the police?” Lucas whispered.

“Exactly that,” I said.

“Without this, he’ll just say we got sick on our own.” I carried the blue plate back to the table and set it down in the exact spot where Christopher had left it, in the same angle, the remaining food arranged as close to how it had been as my shaking hands could manage.

If he came back — when he came back — I needed the scene to look untouched.