She showed me a video taken only minutes earlier.
One at a time, the boys had entered Lily’s room wearing hats.
Aaron had stood beside her bed and said, “You told me I looked strange without hair, so I brought some people who could make me look normal.”
The first teammate removed his cap.
Then another.
And another.
Lily’s eyes had widened with each reveal.
By the time Coach Daniels entered and bowed dramatically, she had begun laughing so hard she was crying.
In the video, Aaron never asked for applause.
He never gave a speech.
He simply stood beside Lily, smiling as person after person showed her that she was surrounded.
I turned toward him.
“You arranged all of this?”
His cheeks reddened.
“I started asking people a couple of weeks ago.”
“A couple of weeks?”
He nodded.
“I knew Lily’s hair was going to fall out, and I
