The ink had gone brown at the edges.

April 1984, in the surveyor’s hand, with the creek drawn in a wavering line along the bottom of the sixty acres.

“That’s your south line,” Frank said.

“Right down to the water, like it always was.”

I put my thumb on the inked line and did not move it.

“His papers say forty yards short of the water.”

“There’s a second folder in here,” Frank said, and pulled it out.

“Deed from eighty-nine, when Dad sold the north forty.