Of course, Tommy looked different. He was a grown man now, utterly transformed from when he’d last stood there. But Malcolm would know him anywhere, even after all this time. The worst of it was this: the boy hadn’t grown up to look like Katrina. No, it was John he resembled, with those dark brown eyes, the hard lines of his jaw. Tommy had the same light build as his father, too. The overall resemblance was uncanny. Malcolm could only hope Tommy didn’t realize.

It had been raining, though only lightly—a rare kind of rain for them here. But the man on his doorstep wasn’t properly dressed for any kind of weather in the Hebrides, wearing only jeans and a jersey, with trainers on his feet (the thin canvas kind, too). There was a rucksack on his shoulder, but it didn’t look to Malcolm like it could have much in it—certainly not proper boots and a waterproof.

“Tommy,” Malcolm said, because now that seemed like the only possible thing to say.

And the man said, meeting his eye and then not meeting it again, “Hello, Malcolm.”

There was a short silence, then Malcolm said, “Won’t you come in?” It was the phrase Heather would have used, and for a few seconds he was breathless with missing her. But he was distracted by this stranger—not a stranger, not really—stepping past him across the threshold, and then Tommy was standing in his house for the first time in twenty years.

Tommy said, “I hope you don’t mind . . .” Then he stopped, looking around the narrow hallway as though surprised to find himself there. It must seem even smaller to him now, Malcolm thought—the adult Tommy took up so much more space than the child.

Tommy put his hands in his pockets and rolled his shoulders back. Then he began again. “I know it’s weird, just turning up here. I should have called, or written a letter, or . . . emailed or something.” He gave a short laugh that didn’t sound like a laugh. “Of course, I don’t have your email. Not your phone number, either. Couldn’t find it.”

“I don’t have email,” Malcolm said, thinking how strange it was to hear a man’s deep voice coming from Tommy, coming out from behind a man’s face—John’s face. Tommy’s accent was unexpected too. It was unplaceable, not quite Scottish, not quite English, carrying only the faintest inflection of his past. “Never really caught up with all that,” Malcolm added, realizing he’d been silent for too long. “Heather was better at it. She had her own email account, her own laptop.” He stopped, aware that now he was only talking to fill up the space around his discomfort.