But he is not normal, and he knows that. He keeps his phone locator on at all times so Ms. Johnson can track him. He panics if she so much as double parks, worried it will attract the police. When he travels, he insists on hotels lined with cameras . “What was taken away from me so easily could easily be taken away from me again,” he said.

He has nightmares about his trial, with the judge and police officers looming cartoonishly above him.

“This side of the bed is dry but my side of the bed — ” he said.

“Soaking wet,” Ms. Johnson finished.

In May, Mr. Dennis got some good news. A federal judge, Eduardo C. Robreno, had found a novel way to let his lawsuit against Philadelphia proceed even though he had entered the plea deal in 2016.

Judge Robreno determined that the deal was the second of two separate convictions, and said that Mr. Dennis was entitled to sue based on the first one, which had been declared invalid by a federal judge.

If Judge Robreno’s decision is upheld by higher courts, it could present a new way forward for the wrongfully convicted.

Mr. Dennis, for now, is trying to figure out each day.

“I’m sitting here a semblance, trying to get back to me,” he said.

He rose to shake hands, and then stopped at the threshold of his house, not willing, for now, to go any further.