“Meir, let me ask you something,” I said after a while.“Sure.”“Do you think I’m a bad person?”“Only God knows that for sure, Willy.”“So you don’t have an opinion at all?”“Not one that really matters.”“Okay, let me ask you something else. If the Polish peasant who hid Jews from the Nazis is a hero, what is the Polish peasant who turned the Jews away? Is he a coward?”Meir smiled, “Of course.”“Really? A coward? A bad man?”“A coward isn’t a bad man, necessarily. You can’t know if you’re a bad man until you die.”“You’ve got to wait until you hear god’s decision?”“Well, yes, that’s true. But I meant something else. Only when you die do you run out of chances to be good. Until then, there is always the possibility of turning yourself around.”

“I know some of you areThinking maybe I deserved it.But before you start pointingFringers, let me ask youIs what I did really so bad?So bad I deserved to die?So bad I deserved to die like that?Is what I did really much worseThen what anybody else does?Is it really so much worseThan what you do?”

“Emma leaned over to where their faces were only inches apart. “Since you think you know everything, tell me if you understand this. Have you ever wanted something so bad you think you’d die if you don’t have it? That the mere thought of it keeps you up at night. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat, you can’t drink. You are so consumed by that desire nothing else matters, and you’re not sure life is worth living if you can’t have it.”

“You know, Lockie,’ she said aloud.‘What?’‘The thing about parents is . . . the thing about good parents — and I think your parents are pretty good . . .’‘Yeah, Mum makes cakes, amazing cakes, and Dad takes me fishing even when there’s work to do. They’re good parents, my mum and dad. But . . . but they didn’t find me.’‘I know, Lockie, but I promise they were looking. When we get you home they’ll tell you. I promise they were looking.’‘I should have stayed by the stroller. Maybe they’re mad and that’s why they didn’t look. Maybe they know I’m a bad boy.’ ‘You are not bad, Lockie,’ said Tina. She said the words slowly, patiently. ‘You are not bad and your parents sound like they’re pretty good parents. And you know . . . well, the thing about good parents is that they kind of love you no matter what.’‘No matter what?’‘Yeah, whatever happens, whatever you do, they still love you. Sometimes they shout when you do stuff they don’t like but they always love you.’‘What if the stuff you do is really bad?’‘They’ll still love you. That’s their job.’‘No, I mean what if the stuff you did is really, really bad?’‘It doesn’t matter, Lockie. You’re just a kid. Nothing you could do could be that bad.’‘You don’t know what bad is,’ said Lockie, and then he repeated the words to himself. ‘You don’t know what bad is.”

“Have you ever wanted something so bad you think you’d die if you don’t have it? That the mere thought of it keeps you up at night. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat, you can’t drink. You are so consumed by that desire nothing else matters, and you’re not sure life is worth living if you can’t have it.”

“Bryn,” he said. “Do you know how much I love you?”I smiled and answered with a hint of sarcasm in my tone, “Well, I’m not quite sure.”“No, I’m serious,” Tyler said, turning over onto his side so that he was facing me. His eyes were serious, something that I only saw when he really had something to say.“Yeah, I do. It’s the kind that hurts so good, right? Almost like you can’t breathe without the other person and the only thing that keeps you sane throughout the day is knowing that you’ll see that person soon enough. Nothing can come between you and that person. You would do anything for them. Be anyone they need you to be. Without thinking twice, you know you will be there, no matter what. That’s what loving you is to me.”