They loved these people.

That was the thing their grandmother and their aunt could not be bothered to notice: that two children had crossed a continent with a handmade card and their best clothes, offering up their uncomplicated love, and were about to have it handed back as an inconvenience.

Children give their hearts without conditions.

What a family does with that gift tells you everything about the family.

Lindsay heard the comment — I saw her shoulders go tight — and all she said was, “Roxanne, not now, please.” Not apologize to my kids. Not those are my children. Just not now. That was Lindsay in a single phrase: she didn’t defend people when it got uncomfortable.

She smoothed things over.