He ate fast, at first, and watched the serving dishes, and I caught him more than once easing a roll or a piece of fruit off the table and into his pocket, and the first time I saw it I had to leave the room so he wouldn’t see my face.

I never scolded it.

I never made it a thing.

What I did instead was open the pantry all the way one evening, both doors wide, and show him the shelves I’d deliberately overfilled — the cereal and the crackers and the peanut butter and the cans stacked deep — and I said, “This is all ours.

It doesn’t run out.

When it gets low, I go to the store, and I fill it up again, and that is my job now, forever, and it is not something you ever have to think about.” I put his favorite cereal, once I learned what it was, on the lowest shelf where he could reach it himself, any time, no permission.

And for a long while I would still find little caches in his room — crackers behind books, a hidden apple — and I never said a word, I just quietly replaced whatever spoiled and kept the shelves full, because a child does not stop hiding food when you tell him to.