I have turned that thought over more times than I can count, and it has become something close to the organizing principle of the rest of my life.

We spend so much of our attention, in this world, on what people have — their money, their houses, their titles, the size of the door itself.

And it tells you almost nothing.

Paige had a beautiful home, refinished floors, a wine glass in her hand, a life she had built partly on the wreckage of mine, and behind all of it she was hollow.

Mr.

Gable had a folding cot in a guardhouse and a thermos of soup and a grief that had never healed, and behind that he was one of the largest-hearted human beings I have ever known.