The boy lowered his head.
She pointed toward the doorway.
"Get your bag and stop embarrassing yourself."
Jordan bent to retrieve his lunchbox, which had slipped from the edge of the island. Before he could reach it, Vanessa kicked it across the kitchen floor.
The plastic container skidded toward the hallway.
"Maybe next time you'll learn to listen."
Jordan froze.
Then a deep male voice came from the doorway.
"Vanessa."
The stepmother turned.
Standing near the entrance was her husband, thirty-eight-year-old Marcus Carter, a tall, muscular Black man with deep-brown skin, closely faded black hair, and a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a fitted steel-gray button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms and dark trousers.
He had come home unexpectedly after discovering that he'd left an important work folder on his desk.
Now he was staring at his wife.
Then at the empty lunchbox on the floor.
Then at his son.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Marcus slowly stepped into the kitchen.
"Did you just kick my boy's lunchbox?"
Vanessa immediately changed her expression.
"Baby, you scared me! I thought you'd already left for work."
He didn't smile.
"Answer my question."
She sighed.
"Jordan has been acting out again. I've been trying to teach him responsibility."
Marcus looked toward the two full lunchboxes.
Then toward the empty one.
"What responsibility requires him to go to school without food?"
Vanessa folded her arms.
"He refused breakfast, Marcus. I'm not going to reward bad behavior."
Jordan's eyes began filling with tears.
His father noticed.
"Come here, son."
The boy hesitated.
That hesitation frightened Marcus more than the empty lunchbox.
Jordan had always run toward him when he came home. As a little boy, he would leap into his father's arms, laughing so hard that Marcus sometimes had to set down whatever he was carrying.
Now he stood perfectly still.
As though approaching his own father might get him in trouble.
Marcus crouched slightly.
"Jordan. Come here."
The boy finally moved.
Marcus placed a hand gently on his shoulder.
"Have you eaten anything today?"
Jordan shook his head.
"Yesterday?"
The boy stared at the floor.
Vanessa interrupted.
"Marcus, don't start interrogating him. He's going to tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear."