The letter did not fix everything.
It fixed the strip. The county accepted the easement with Franklin's statement attached and closed the lot-line adjustment without a hearing. The studio stayed. The dune stayed. The grass stayed. My mother's parcel stayed.
But it did not fix the family.
Vivian did not speak to me for a week. Then she called and asked me to come to dinner, and I went, because I wanted to see what she would do. She was polite and careful and she never once mentioned the survey or the letter or the tape. She passed me the potatoes and asked about my work and told a story about a friend of hers who had bought a house on the wrong lot. It was, in its way, a surrender.
Margot was different. She was quiet at dinner and she kept looking at me, and when I got up to leave, she
