I did not stop her, and I want to be clear that it was her hand that did it, not mine.

I had refused the offer; that was my right as trustee.

But burning it — the small, final, unnecessary theater of it — was Colette’s, and I understood why she needed to do it, and I let her.

For three years a version of that folder had hung over our family: first as a forged deed, then as a fraudulent loan, then as a resort developer’s clean and legal checkbook.

The threat kept changing its clothes, but it was always the same threat, always someone standing at our door with a piece of paper that would make the cabin theirs if only we would sign.