The snow came again that week, and then again, and the lake settled into winter the way it settled into everything — slowly, completely, without hurry. The house sat white-roofed above the white water, the smoke from the chimney standing straight in the cold, and inside, the days had the particular quiet of a season that asks nothing of you but patience. Aaron read in the study. Sophie wrote in the room that caught the morning light. The folder held its letters and the photograph, and David smiled at the garden through the long dark.
The first story arrived on a Tuesday, sent through Sarah, forwarded from Dr. Osei's office — Akosua's finished translation of her grandmother's first story, the English set down beside the language it had come from. Aaron read it that afternoon in the study, and then he read it again, and then he sat for a long time with the pages in his hands.
