On the other side of the tunnel, I climbed the wet grass to the north side of Foster. A few cars lit me up with their headlights. I walked several blocks to the neighborhood of North Park University. My mother, Eleanor, had gone there. I walked as far as Kedzie and saw a one-story office building across from the entrance to the university campus. I could see white lettering stenciled on the tall windows.

Chicago Housing Solutions.

This was the nonprofit run by Dylan Moran.

The lights were on inside. I could see a few workers, but I couldn’t make out individual faces. All I could do was wait for Dylan to head home and then follow him. I was near a McDonald’s, and I was hungry, so I took a minute to get myself an order of fries. I brought them back out and ate them one at a time as I perched on the top of a low fence that ran along Kedzie.

I’d been there about twenty minutes when a voice behind me said, “Mr. Moran?”

It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d be recognized here. I looked back, thinking about how to explain myself. A plump black woman in her sixties stood next to the door of an old Camry in the McDonald’s parking lot, with a brown takeaway bag in her hand. A boy no older than ten held her hand. Seeing my face, she gave me a wide, gap-toothed smile.

“Oh, Mr. Moran, I knew that was you. You taking a little dinner break?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

She looked down at the boy who was with her. “William, you go shake that man’s hand, all right? Do it right now. He’s a very special person.”

The boy looked nervous as he came up to the fence, but his grip was strong as he reached up to shake my hand. “My name’s Bill,” he said.

“Nice to meet you, Bill. I’m Dylan.”

The woman approached the fence, too. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

I began to apologize, but she waved it away.