Identical

MINDY watched from her car as David walked towards the school gate. He wandered slowly in the general direction of the entrance, mind obviously somewhere else, eyes downcast. She saw all the other children gathering in little clumps, three or four in every group, chattering quickly and excitedly like songbirds just waking to a new day.

Her heart ached at the thought that her darling little boy was so alone, so lonely that no other child even looked in his direction. She wanted to jump out of the car and yell to anyone who could hear her that he was a lovely child, that he deserved to be in a group too, to be met at the gates by friends who couldn’t wait to talk to him.

But that would embarrass her boy, and that was possibly a worse sin