Mr. Calloway lowered his voice. “Mrs. Sullivan, today’s lesson covered a war memorial, and Lily recognized a name on the slide. It was her grandfather’s. She asked me a question I could not answer, and she has not been the same since.” My stomach tightened. My father had died before Lily was born, and we never spoke of the war. “I did not know he was her grandfather,” he added. “But I knew him.”

He pulled a worn photograph from his jacket. It showed two young soldiers with their arms around each other, one of them my father. “That other man is me,” he whispered. “I have taught this lesson for years and never told anyone.” Behind us, the office door opened a crack, and Lily stood there, trembling, holding a folded paper. “Mom,” she said, “I found this in the textbook.”