I let a homeless elderly man sleep on my porch during a terrible summer storm. By morning, he was gone—but what he left beneath my doormat brought me to tears.

One summer evening, we sat on the porch.

The same porch where I had once stood looking at an old man beneath an elm tree.

Lily was reading.

I was drinking tea.

Then she looked toward the sidewalk.

“Mom.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that Albert?”

I turned.

He was walking toward us.

His hair was whiter now.

His steps were slower.

But he was smiling.

He carried a paper bag.

“What’s that?” Lily asked.

“Something for you.”

He handed her the bag.

She opened it.

A loaf of bread.

She hugged him immediately.

Then he handed me a photograph.

I looked at it.

My breath caught.

It was my mother and Estelle.

Young.

Laughing.

Standing outside the old hardware store.

My mother was holding a loaf of bread.

Estelle was pointing at something outside the frame.

On the back, Estelle had written:

Two women who understood that having enough is not the same as having everything.