Chapter 4 — Soaked Bread

Mrs.

Ortega walked me down the hall to a quiet study hall, where Maya was doing her homework, and she let me watch my daughter through the window.

And through that glass, I watched Maya open her backpack, and pull out the half of a dinner roll she had saved from lunch, and break it into pieces in a paper cup, and pour hot water over it from a dispenser to soften the stale bread into something she could eat.

“She does that often,” Mrs.