The little girl did not offer the homeless woman food because she was kind. She offered it because, somehow, she thought she had found her mother. Snow drifted softly over the street while people hurried past, pretending not to see the young woman on the bench. She looked like winter had already taken too much from her—torn gray clothes, bare feet against the snow, hands so cold they barely seemed alive, eyes too tired to ask anyone for anything. Then the little girl in the bright yellow coat, Lily Hayes, stopped in front of her and held out a small brown paper bag with both mittened hands. “Are you cold?”
