A plate wrapped in foil at 10 p.m. is a love letter. Read it that way.

Somebody stayed up, or got up, or thought about you while you were out. They did not write anything. They covered the plate and left it where you would find it, and that piece of foil is doing the work of a sentence that might be hard for them to say out loud.

Do not let it go unanswered just because it arrived without words. Text them from the kitchen, and wash the plate. Say the specific thing in the morning: I saw that you left me dinner. In houses that run on gestures, an answer in the same form counts double.