My husband had spent years warning me never to set foot on that farm. So after he passed away and the lawyer handed me the key, saying that from now on the place belonged to me, I was ready to sell it right away and put everything behind me. But before making my final decision, I still wanted to see it once for myself. When the door opened, I finally understood why, all those years, he had never wanted me to set foot there.

Of course they were. Men who had not cared enough to attend the funeral in person were suddenly animated by family heritage the moment oil entered the story. I should have felt shocked, maybe. Instead I felt a dark, almost weary recognition. I had never met Joshua’s brothers, not once in twenty-four years, but I knew enough. Their absence had always been one of those facts we lived around without unpacking. There are estrangements that announce themselves with one dramatic story, and then there are the quiet, ossified ones that become so permanent they begin to seem geological.

“I’m going,” I said.

Mr. Winters glanced at the clock. “To Canada?”

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

He studied me for a beat, then gave the smallest nod. “In that case, I’ll have copies of every relevant document prepared for you before you leave.”

Forty-eight hours later, after one hurried flight from Minneapolis to Calgary, one sleepless night in an airport hotel off Barlow Trail, and a long drive north through miles of open Alberta country, I found myself staring at wrought-iron gates marked MAPLE CREEK FARM in weathered black metal.