The photograph was of a narrow laneway, the light of afternoon slanting across puddles. In the doorway, a man stood with his shoulders turned toward her. It was Elias, older, cheeks rimed with stubble and eyes that had learned to look for escape routes. He’d found his way back not through law or headline but through people: a social worker who had pieced together fragments, an old neighbor who remembered a name, a registry clerk who hadn’t accepted erasure.