My hands shook as I lifted the lid of a small wooden box. Inside, resting on faded blue velvet, lay a tarnished silver ring, far too small for any grown woman’s finger. Beside it was a creased photograph of two children on a Budapest doorstep, a skinny boy and a girl with crooked braids. I knew that doorstep. I knew those braids, because they were mine. On the back, in careful old handwriting, were six words: “Istvan always keeps his promises.”

My granddaughter held my arm. “Grandma, he was waiting outside the hospital where I work. He knew your name, your old street, even the color of your front door.” I walked to the window with my heart pounding like a girl’s. Under the streetlamp stood an old man with a white mustache and a cane, staring up at my house.