“Tell them your name, sweetheart,” Laurie prompted her two-year-old daughter when Alejandro’s cousin Margaret asked with a wide grin of anticipation.

“Cotton,” the little girl with sparkling cobalt-blue eyes replied. She’d inherited many of her dad’s features including his black hair and blue eyes. Her sweet demeanor came from her mother, Laurie liked to say.

“Cotton?” Margaret exclaimed. “How adorable!”

“Oh, it gets even cuter,” Alejandro said ...