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.

On the desk in the main house there is a laptop. The password is the date we met, followed by your maiden name.

I have spent the last three years turning that place from the broken ground of my childhood into something worthy of you. Whether you keep it or not is entirely your choice. But before you choose, let me show you what I was trying to build.

I love you, Cat. More than you know, more than I said well enough, more than I got the chance to prove in all the ways I should have.

Joshua

By the time I finished reading, my eyes were too blurred to make out the last line properly. I pressed the paper to my chest, ridiculous gesture though it was. Grief has no dignity. Love does not, either, when it is interrupted.

“I need to see it,” I said.

Mr. Winters did not look surprised. “There is one more thing you should know before you go.”

I lowered the letter.

“Your husband’s brothers have filed objections to the transfer. They are contesting his capacity at the time of purchase and claiming the property is ancestral land that should have remained within the Mitchell family.”

The rage that moved through me then was so clean it almost steadied me.

“That’s absurd.”

“I agree. But given the property’s current value, they appear motivated.”

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.