“I think I’ve just met the happiest person in the world!” My teenage daughter piped as she burst through the door.

“Oh, who?” I said, trying to cut carrots and keep my youngest from sticking out his hand into the cutting board.

“The new girl, Carrie,” Billy said brightly, plopping her backpack onto the kitchen countertop, “She bopped around all day, hugging people, laughing, talking to anyone who would listen...and she passed around these!”

I hadn’t noticed before how she held her hands very carefully behind her back as she burst through the doorway.

They were seven Easter lilies, a bright and joyful red. “Her family moved into the Silver Bell farm, the one next to the Knox’s. They have these flowers everywhere up there.”

As my little guy Eddie attempted to crawl into the sink, I asked, “Didn’t that place burn down a few years back?” Billy shrugged, busy taking her books out of her backpack. “ She said they were building it back up,” She chortled a little, “When she wasn’t chatting up the lunch ladies.”