Mia was gripping my left hand so hard it hurt.
“That was them?” she whispered. “That was really them?”
“That was really them,” I said.
My daughters had grown up knowing only that their grandparents existed somewhere and had chosen not to.
Now they’d watched those two people walk into a room full of love they had no part in building and try to carry some of it out in a designer bag.
“I used to wonder what we did wrong,” Ava said quietly, watching the glass doors swing shut. “To make them not want us.”
“You didn’t do anything, baby.” I pulled both my girls in against me. “Some people can only see what things cost. Samuel could only see what things were worth.” I kissed the top of Ava’s head. “We got the better teacher.”
Around us, slowly, the hundreds of people Samuel had rescued turned back to the business of saying goodbye to him.
