It was home for almost two years, and I loved it for the light that poured in the windows and the hill across the street. We were lingering at the bottom of the steep driveway when its owner drove up.

“Sorry we’re standing here, but we used to live in your house,” I said.

“You lived here?” he asked, amazed. When we said yes, he invited us inside to look around.

For the next 20 minutes we chatted with the current occupant of our long-ago home. We walked inside and up the stairs, saw the new patio and the old fireplace. He asked us questions: was there a wall here? a door there?

I couldn’t stop thinking of the young couple who rented the house, the baby born to them there (now a young mother herself) and all the wonderful people who lived nearby. So often I imagine the rooms and contours of our old house. To see the real thing was a strange and wondrous experience.