It takes a particular strength of character, unusual in a child and honestly unusual in an adult, to be kind to the one the whole group has agreed to mock, to break ranks with your peers for the sake of someone who can offer you nothing in return but their friendship.

Gabriel did that, casually, constantly, without ever seeming to notice he was doing anything remarkable at all, which is of course what made it remarkable.

He was not performing his kindness to Gemma for an audience; there was no audience he wanted to impress.

He was simply, at eight and nine and ten years old, already the kind of person who could not stand to see someone treated as less than they were.

I did not know, watching him pick my sister for kickball, that I was watching the early practice of a man who would one day sign away years of his life to keep that same girl from being locked away.