My finger shook as I read the line aloud. It was a deed, recorded eleven years ago in Josephine Aldridge’s own name. Beneath it, in neat black ink, sat my full name: Maybelle Louise Garrity. Winifred pressed her lips together and whispered, “Keep reading, honey.” My eyes blurred, but I made out the words that followed, the tenant house, the pecan grove, and forty acres of land along the lane.

Then the courthouse door banged open behind us. Warren stood there in his good suit, red in the face, with Dalton and Orville crowding behind him. “That deed is a mistake,” he barked, “and Mother’s lawyer has already told us so.” Winifred never blinked. She turned the book a little further and tapped one more line beneath mine. Warren’s eyes dropped to it, and every drop of color left his face.