“It is sweet little Chloe.” She reached behind her ornate armchair and produced, not a wrapped gift, but a flimsy drugstore paper bag with a cheap red bow hanging crookedly off the handle, the kind of bag you grab at a checkout counter as an afterthought.

And she did not hand it to Chloe the way she had handed the tablets to the others, ceremonially, with both hands.

She more or less tossed it in Chloe’s direction.

“This is for you, sweetheart,” she said.

“I certainly did not want you to feel totally left out this morning.”

I felt Caleb’s entire body go rigid beside me before Chloe’s hands had even closed around the bag.

But Chloe, my sweet, unfailingly polite daughter, who had been raised to be careful and gracious with adults, accepted the flimsy thing with both hands as though it were precious.