A teenager grinning beside a dented first car.

A young man in graduation robes standing between Daniel and Ruth.

I recognized the silver cross in a picture from his twelfth birthday, hanging over a T-shirt with a badly drawn rocket ship.

“Mom said I refused to take it off,” Tobias explained.

“When I was little, I thought it had magic powers.”

“Did it?”

He grinned.

“It kept me from losing my locker key.