As children living in Stamps, Arkansas with their grandmother, Maya and Bailey cried during Christmas after receiving gifts from their estranged parents. Maya recalls receiving a photograph from her father and a tea set, along with a doll from her mother, who lives in Long Beach, California. Instead of appreciating the gifts sent from her parents, Maya becomes depressed and begins to cry. When Maya walks out back, she also finds her brother in tears. Maya had told herself that their parents were dead in order to explain why she and Bailey were shipped off to Arkansas to live with their grandmother. The gifts confirm that both of their parents are alive and forces Maya and Bailey to ask the difficult question concerning why their parents no longer wanted them around. Maya wonders if she and Bailey did something wrong that motivated their parents to abandon them and is overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. Essentially, the Christmas gifts the children receive bring up negative feelings and remind them that their parents did not want them for some unknown reason.