My brother vanished on the night of his prom—23 years later, I spotted someone who looked exactly like him 3,000 miles from home.

promise never to mention any of it to anyone. Not my mom’s side of the family, not my friends. No one.”

“Why?” I asked. “Jacob, why would he do that? Why would he disappear like that, and never come back, and never even call?”

He quietly stared out of the windshield for a few seconds.

“He told me a little that day,” he said. “Not everything. He’s never continue reading …