After knocking and hearing no response, he noticed the door was unlocked and stepped inside.

The sight that met him nearly knocked the breath from his chest.

He froze where he stood, pulse quickening. A woman and a child stood in the living room, but their faces were not those he had met that rainy evening.

Toys lay neatly arranged on the rug, a hot dinner waited on the table, and atop the piano rested a short letter: “Thank you for your kindness. We are home.”

But his attention shifted to the corner, where a small child sat wrapped in a warm blanket.