The Pantry Is Not a Hiding Place (But I Keep Trying)
Maya Torres
3 min read · Sep 14
Ten seconds of peace, interrupted by fingers under the door.
Every parent has a secret chocolate location. Every child has found it. This is an arms race and we are losing.
There is a shelf in my pantry, behind the tinned tomatoes, that I think of as mine. It is not mine. Nothing in this house is mine, including, on some days, the bathroom.
The routine is precise. Wait for the noise level to suggest they are busy but not so quiet as to suggest a crime. Step in. Close the door most of the way, because fully closed makes a sound they know.
I got three squares in before I saw the fingers appear under the door, wiggling, like a small ransom note. No words. Just fingers. They know what they've found.
So I did what any adult of sound mind would do. I passed a square under the door, like a prisoner trading cigarettes, and we ate in companionable silence on opposite sides of a door.
She's seven. She's never told anyone. I think about that more than I expected to.
