Petition for property division.
Plaintiffs: Robert and Margaret Carter.
Defendant: Evelyn Carter.
For several seconds, I stood beside the mailbox reading the names as if repetition might turn them into strangers.
It did not.
My own parents were taking me to court.
The property listed in the petition was the old farmhouse my grandfather had built.
He had left it to me.
My parents wanted it transferred back to them on the grounds that I had abandoned it.
A dry laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it.
It was not amusement.
It was what happened when life offered one more absurdity after you had already used up your tears on worse things.
I carried the summons inside and set it on the kitchen table.
Knox followed, nails clicking across the floor, then rested his head against my knee.
“Guess they finally found another way to talk to me,” I told him.
