By Christmas, Royce had keys, signatures, and opinions.
By New Year’s, he had control.
By the second week of January, he had me standing in the machine shed while snow hissed against the tin roof and told me I had until sundown to clear out.
“You can’t just take it,” I said.
He stood by Dad’s workbench in his insulated coveralls, one boot crossed over the other, looking at me the way men look at fence posts—something in the way, something to move later.