oatmeal

Overnight, my routine of instant oatmeal dinners and dodging overdraft fees turned into grocery lists, school pickups and conversations I never expected to have so soon.

Most mornings he’d take the girls to school — Ava invariably leaving the house in a panic, eating the bowl of oatmeal her dad had made her for breakfast on the road while finishing her homework.

Breakfast is oatmeal with fresh blueberries almost every day.

The oatmeal color looks about right and when Risa picks at it with her trowel, the surrounding black and gray debris falls away, revealing the rough outline of a box’s edge.

His breakfasts vary widely, from duck eggs to oatmeal to smoked salmon on cornbread toast.