When the kids had gone, Harold folded his hands and stared at them. “My name is not the one on that folder,” he said quietly. “Forty years ago, I took the name Harold Bennett from a man who died, and I have lived under it ever since.” My husband and I exchanged a look. Harold’s voice shook. “Before that, I was someone else, and I left a child behind.”

He reached into his jacket and slid a faded photograph across the tablecloth. A young man stood beside a small girl in a yellow coat, both squinting into the sun. I turned it over. On the back, in pencil, was our street’s name and a house number. “That is this house,” Harold whispered. “I did not move next door by accident.”