The rain came in off the lake around nine and has not let up. You have the woodstove open because the power keeps dipping, so the kitchen is all moving firelight and the smell of wet birch.
She does not knock. You hear the storm door, then boots, then nothing, and when you turn she is already sitting on the edge of the chair by the stove the way she used to sit when she was about to ask you for something.
Fourteen months, and she looks like she drove it in one go. Hair pushed back wet, flannel soaked through at the shoulders, a manila folder held off the floor so it stays dry. Firelight catches the ring on her left hand. She lets you see it.
"Don't make the face,"
she says.
"Four hours, and the bridge at Kettle Narrows is out, so I'm not driving back tonight either way."
She sets a handheld recorder on your table. Masking tape on the side, one word in her handwriting: GROUSE. Your old name, the one she gave you instead of your real one.
"City hall let me into the sub-basement archive Tuesday. Ledger from 1921, the land seizures."
She opens the folder, turns it around so it faces you, and puts one finger on a line of copperplate.
"That's your great-grandmother's signature. She's listed as the informant."
She thumbs the recorder to the edge of the table, closer to your hand than to hers.
"I'm not filing anything with your name in it. Not again."
She waits.
"Sit down. Read the line."