Packing lunches this morning, I dumped the contents of Sophie’s bag onto the kitchen table — the only good and fast way to get rid of the loose goldfish crackers roaming around in there.

As usual, her calculator was there, too, as well as her school ID and about a dozen mechanical pencils, most of the erasers chewed off. I’m proud of Sophie for figuring out a good place to store her ID; she almost never misplaces it, a pretty big achievement for any kid, let alone one with Down syndrome.

There were a few rogue items in there, as well. I lined them up next to the lunch bag and paused for a moment. Evidence. I feel like an anthropologist these days, sniffing around my teenagers’ lives. Not too hard, I don’t look at their phones or even poke much in their ever-messy rooms. But if something presents, itself, well….. Can you blame me?

At the bottom of Sophie’s lunch bag:

*1 Costco brand granola bar.

*A Hershey’s kiss in pink foil.

*A Hershey’s miniature chocolate bar with an Easter Bunny drawing on the wrapper.

*A campaign button for a girl running for school treasurer.

From both of my daughters’ earliest ages, I’ve learned that it’s almost impossible to get any information about the school day. It’s like doing journalism — the worst way to get someone to tell you an anecdote about anything is to ask, “Hey, can you tell me an anecdote about X?” You’ve got to go in sideways.

Toss in some hormones and the fact that I’m MOM (pronounced “Mo-o-m,” always huffily) and — nothing.

So when they were little I started asking, “Hey, who did you eat lunch with?” And that often kickstarted a conversation.

But here’s the truth: I’m not sure Sophie has anyone to eat with these days. Lunch has always been the toughest hour (or 20 minutes, or whatever the fuck amount of time they give them) of the day. I relate. I ate lunch in the library when I was in high school. Annabelle, Sophie’s older sister, has her own share of lunchtime challenges. For Sophie, it began in kindergarten with one aide for 100 kids — leading to my request for help opening my daughter’s juice box (and keeping her safe on the playground) and, then, the words I can still hear the principal speak as if it was yesterday:

“If you want Sophie to attend this school, she’s going to have to act like the rest of the kids here. Otherwise, there are other options.”

We’ve skidded past those “other options” for years, and here we are, nearing the end of tenth grade. Some years I’ve had spies in the lunch room. Not now. Sophie has an aide for academic classes; otherwise, she’s on her own.

And I have no idea what goes on at lunch.

I stared at the candy, the granola bar, the button. Did someone give them to her at lunch? Or in class? Was each from a different kid, or all from one close friend? On different days? Or did she find them somewhere? (Not really her style, but who knows.) Did every kid at school get one of those campaign buttons, or only a few kids? Does she ever sit with anyone at lunch?

Is she happy?

That last one really bugs me. Sophie is proud. “Everything’s fine!” she tells me, when I ask. The only clue I get is the texts she sends almost every day — from across the dinner table, from her bedroom, from school around lunch time:

It is hard to have Down syndrome. 

That is evidence I can’t ignore, and something Sophie’s been saying since she was 8. Almost half her life. I still don’t know what to do with it.