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Forrest estate—the mansion, the furniture, the land—into question. It is a lengthy process and I do not trust the lawyers, so I have situated myself here, in the Veranda Hotel, in hopes of getting my due. Unfortunately, so has every relative for miles, some with tenuous ties to the family, at best.
    My own husband deserted me, much like yours deserted you, when I was younger and helpless. Although I am lucky enough to be able to sustain myself by my own small means, it is clear that your husband is able to support himself only from the odd jobs he took to get this far from home. I was unable to hold my former husband accountable to my family, so I am writing this letter to make sure you can hold your William to the responsibilities of his. You and your children are inheritors of what ancestral wealth is left here in the state of Virginia. I know that your husband has no intention of returning to you or sharing with you any of the assets that remain. It would behoove you and your progeny to make your way northward to claim your share before March twenty-first when the estate will be settled.
    I hope that this letter finds you in time.
    Yours most sincerely,
    Eula Bonhomme-Forrest
    Judith had been playing with the lipstick. Now she took the letter back and smoothed the creamy paper out on the rough tabletop.
    â€œDo you understand it?” she said.
    â€œYour daddy”—Cassie decided not to say our daddy —“he’s stayin’ in a hotel in Virginia with an old lady who related to him by marriage.”
    â€œWhen she says ‘the estate,’ she’s talking about the mansion, the furniture, and the land. Ain’t she?”
    Cassie read the paragraph again, to herself. The room was so warm that the paper seemed to have its own aroma, like perfume, lifting off of it. “Looks like it.”
    â€œSomeone died, so they have to sell everything off. Like Tawney’s.”
    â€œIf it’s like Tawney’s, all they’ll have is leftover junk the rest of the relatives didn’t get a chance to steal.”
    â€œShe says they got wealth .” Judith pointed right to the word Cassie had been certain she couldn’t read.
    â€œYou want to go to Virginia?”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œVirginia’s a thousand miles from here. How you gone get there by March twenty-first?” Cassie got out of her chair, went over to the OXYDOL calendar, and flipped the page to March. “That’s just a month away. Even if you started walking right now, it’d take more’n that to get there.”
    â€œWe’ll find a way,” said Judith. She folded the letter up again and put it in her pocket. She capped the lipstick and pushed it in as well.
    â€œ We will?”
    â€œYeah,” said Judith, “You’re progeny too.”
    *   *   *
    The albino boy wasn’t at the Wivells’ that Friday afternoon and never appeared at his window, no matter how many longing glances Judith cast over her shoulder as she and Cassie rumbled the wagons down the soaked cobbles. Well into the evening, at the bottom of the hill, Judith announced that she had to get ready for her date and skipped away, rattling the two empty wagons behind her, just as it started to rain again.
    That night, Cassie twisted in her narrow bed in the upstairs front room, listening to the midwinter wind rush though the bare February treetops. Not a cold wind, never really cold , but carrying the distinct sound of more rain.
    Grandmother and Lil Ma snored together in the bed on the other side of the room.
    Cassie turned over toward the window, where the moon was edging up from the windowsill, making its way through bare branches and clouds. She thought about Judith and the letter from Virginia, Judith singing along with colored music on the radio, Judith out in the woods where the albino boy might be kissing her on lips covered with color from the secondhand lipstick. The