He stops when his body finally believes, after a hundred mornings of a full pantry, that the food is going to keep being there.

It took months.

One day the caches simply stopped.

I didn’t mention it.

I just bought more cereal.

Chapter 7 — Big Brother

The thing that undid me most, in those early weeks, was watching Ollie be a parent, because he was extremely good at it and he was six years old and it was the saddest competence I have ever seen.

He cut Josie’s food into small pieces without being asked.