An eleven-year-old boy walked into a bakery with seven dollars and an old photo. An elderly stranger glanced at the picture and instantly turned pale.

Mrs. Carter took us home.

Arthur followed in his own car but did not come inside until she invited him. I was glad. Our apartment still looked the way Dad had left it, and I did not want a stranger touching anything.

Lily went straight to the couch and pulled Dad’s old sweatshirt over her knees.

Arthur stopped at the doorway when he saw it.

“He wore that in high school,” he said.

“No,” I told him. “Dad bought it last year.”

Arthur looked embarrassed. “It looks like one he used to have.”

For a moment I had wanted him to know everything about Dad. Then I remembered how much he had missed.

Mrs. Carter made tea. Arthur asked where Dad was buried. I told him the cemetery and the row. He wrote it down on a receipt because he had no notebook with him.

“Will you go?” Lily asked.

“Yes,” he said. “If that’s all right.”

She nodded.

Mrs. Carter called the woman handling our case and told her Dad’s father had been found. There would be questions, she explained afterward. Arthur would have to show who he was and whether he could care for us.

“How long?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet.”

Adults said that a lot lately. I appreciated Mrs. Carter because she never pretended she had an answer when she did not.

Arthur looked around the apartment. He asked whether we had relatives on our mother’s side.

“Our aunt Vanessa,” I said. “Mom’s cousin.”

Mrs. Carter’s mouth tightened.

Vanessa had come once after Dad died. She took the folder with his insurance papers, saying she would help sort everything out. I had called twice to ask when she was coming back. She said she was busy.

“Did Daniel trust her?” Arthur asked.

“I don’t know.”

“He wrote her number on the emergency card at school,” Mrs. Carter said. “She was close enough to be listed.”

“Did she ask to care for them?”

“She said she couldn’t.”

Arthur was quiet.

The caseworker, Ms. Lewis, arrived that afternoon. She spoke to Arthur in the kitchen while Mrs. Carter sat with Lily and me in the living room.

I could hear only pieces. She asked about his home, his health, and his relationship with Dad. Arthur answered plainly.

“We had been apart,” he said. “I need to know why.”

When Ms. Lewis came into the living room, she knelt beside Lily.

“Would you feel comfortable visiting Arthur while we learn more?”

Lily looked at me.

“If Noah comes.”

“He would.”

I asked whether we would have to sleep there that night.

“No decisions about that today,” Ms. Lewis said. “Mrs. Carter will stay with you as arranged. I want to see Arthur’s home and speak to other people who know him.”

I let out a breath.

After she left, Arthur asked if we wanted to go to the cemetery with him. Mrs. Carter said she could take us, and I agreed.

The grass around Dad’s grave was still bare. Lily placed a small stone on the earth. Dad had taught us to pick one up on walks whenever we saw a place we wanted to remember.

Arthur stood a few steps back.

“You can come closer,” I told him.

He knelt beside the stone.

“I should have been here while you were alive,” he whispered.

I looked away. I had wanted to say those words to Dad about the morning at the hospital. I had stayed home because I thought I had school.

On the way back, Arthur asked if I had read the other writing on the photograph.

“What other writing?”

“There used to be a date on the front.”

I took it from my pocket. Beneath Dad’s finger in the picture was a faint blue mark. I had thought it was a stain.

Arthur recognized it as the day Dad was born.

“I wrote it,” he said. “His mother wanted the date where we could see it.”

“Where is she?”

“She died when Daniel was twelve.”

Dad had told me his mother died, but he rarely spoke about her. Suddenly there was another person in his life I could ask about.

Arthur said her name was Claire. She sang while she cooked and never followed a recipe properly. Dad had inherited her habit of feeding everyone before himself.

I thought of the sandwiches at the bakery.

“Why did you and Dad stop talking?” I asked.

Arthur looked through the windshield.

“He left home after an argument about money. I thought he had taken it. He said he hadn’t.”

“Was he telling the truth?”

“I don’t know.”

It was hard to imagine Dad stealing from him. It was also hard to imagine Arthur knowing Dad lived nearby and never knocking on our door.

When we got home, a car was waiting outside the apartment building.

Vanessa stepped out before Mrs. Carter had parked. She wore a red coat and held Dad’s insurance folder under her arm.

“There you are,” she called. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”