None of it counted.
The law didn’t measure effort.
The law measured names on paper.
She learned that on a cold Tuesday when the frost on the path looked like thin glass.
Evelyn walked seven miles to the land office in the settlement near the valley’s southern mouth. Sam rode on her back in a sling made from a flour sack. Clara walked beside her, carrying a stick like a walking staff the way she’d seen adults do.
The land office was a single room attached to a general store. Behind the desk sat a man with careful eyes and dark hair combed flat, his posture precise, as if his spine had been filed to match his paperwork.
“Mr. Larkin,” Evelyn said, because she’d heard his name spoken with that specific tone people used for men who had power without needing to raise their voice.
Caleb Larkin looked up. He wasn’t unkind. He was exact. He dealt in boundaries and filings, in distances between property lines, and he understood that the law wasn’t the same thing as fairness, but his job required him to enforce the first and ignore the second.
“How can I help you, Mrs…?”
“Hart.”
