The driver was Lyle Benton, a farmer Elias had recruited after Lyle's wife missed an oncology appointment during a snowstorm. He had come to collect the dispatch telephone and route notebooks for the network office. I had not known anyone expected them. When Lyle saw my basket in the sewing room, he asked whether the roof had leaked again. Nora answered that we were reorganizing. I said plainly that she and Cal had moved into my room while questioning whether the house was mine. Lyle did not threaten or lecture. He set down the notebook box and asked if I wanted him to stay until Lenora arrived.

That simple offer made me realize how alone I had allowed myself to become. I said yes. Lenora came with a certified deed and explained every line at the dining table. Nora insisted Elias had been pressured when he added me. Lenora produced the date, witnesses, and notes from a meeting Elias had attended by himself three years earlier. The workshop tools were addressed in a separate signed memorandum: Cal could select their father's drill press and hand planes, but the building and remaining tools stayed with the property. Facts entered the room one at a time until there was nowhere left for suspicion to sit.

I gave Nora and Cal until noon the next day to move into a hotel or the guest room while they packed the approved tools. Nora called me cold. I told her cold was carrying my nightclothes downstairs before her brother's flowers had wilted. She began to cry, and for a moment I wanted to surrender just to stop the sound. Then the dispatch phone rang again. Lyle answered from habit. After listening, he covered the receiver and said the Saturday convoy had changed its route. Instead of meeting at the network office, twelve vehicles were coming to our house.