Thomas Bellamy arrived on a bright November afternoon wearing a canvas jacket and boots that had clearly seen actual work.

He looked like an older version of the baby in the photograph, with Walter’s deep-set eyes and his daughter Anna’s unruly hair.

He declined coffee at first, then accepted when Nadine told him we had just made a fresh pot.

The resemblance between his manner and his grandfather’s letter was unmistakable: an instinct to take up as little room as possible in another person’s day.

“I almost didn’t come,” he admitted.