I was a locksmith in Birmingham for thirty-four years. I've opened jammed safes, rescued children locked in bathrooms, and helped more than a few embarrassed husbands get back into their own homes after forgetting their keys. But nothing prepared me for the old woman who came into my shop carrying a key that didn't belong to any lock I'd ever seen. She was dressed in a grey coat, with white gloves and a small leather handbag. "Can you make a copy of this?" she asked. I examined the key. It was unusually long, made of brass, with three tiny stars engraved near the handle. "Do you know what door it opens?" She shook her head. "My husband gave it to me before he died. He told me never to use it until our son turned thirty." I glanced at the date on the receipt she'd brought with her. The key had been made in 1968. "Your son must be quite old now," I said. "He would have been thirty last week." Something in her voice made me stop working. "Would have been?" She lowered her eyes. "He disappeared when he was six. We searched for years. My husband died without finding him." I felt sorry for her, but I couldn't understand why she'd waited so long to make a copy. "Why bring it now?" She placed a small envelope on my counter. "Because yesterday, someone left this at my front door." Inside was a photograph of a little boy standing beside a red bicycle. On the back, someone had written: Your son is home. Use the key. I studied the photograph. The boy was wearing a shirt with a distinctive embroidered lion on the pocket. I'd seen that lion before. Twenty-eight years earlier, my father had given me a box of old keys and photographs from his locksmith shop. Among them was a picture of a little boy wearing that exact shirt. I remembered the story because my father had never stopped talking about it. A six-year-old boy had vanished from a house on the other side of Birmingham. His parents believed someone had kidnapped him. I looked at the woman. "What's your son's name?" "Samuel." My hands went cold. I had been adopted as a baby. My own birth certificate had been replaced, and I'd never known my biological parents. But Samuel was the name written on the back of the only childhood photograph my adoptive mother had kept hidden in her wardrobe. I excused myself and called her. When she answered, I asked one question. "Where did I come from?" There was a long silence. Then she whispered, "I was hoping you'd never find out." I turned back to the old woman. She was staring at me, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Samuel?" she whispered. Before I could answer, she placed the brass key in my palm. "Your father told me something else," she said. "He said that when you finally came home, I should give you the key and let you open the door yourself." "What door?" She pointed across the street. At the end of the road stood an abandoned house with boarded windows and a rusted front gate. I'd passed it every day for eleven years. The woman began to tremble. "That's where we last saw you." I crossed the street with her, inserted the key into the gate, and turned it. The lock opened immediately. Inside the overgrown garden stood a small red bicycle. I recognised it from the photograph. Then I heard a telephone ringing somewhere inside the house. We entered. On the wall hung dozens of photographs of me at different ages, from childhood to adulthood. Beneath them was a handwritten note. Samuel, if you're reading this, your mother has finally brought you home. I turned to the old woman. "Who wrote this?" She wiped her tears. "Your father." "But you said he died without finding me." She looked towards the staircase. "He did die, Samuel. Twenty-eight years ago. But he spent the last night of his life making sure you'd find your way back." Suddenly, the telephone stopped ringing. A door upstairs creaked open. And a little boy's voice called from the darkness: "Mum? Is Dad back yet?"