Grandma folds her hands in front of her and puts on the meek, obedient look she used with my father. “Anything he left here is for me to put in the safe.”

My fingers go cold. I never had the combination to the safe, but I was just his daughter and slated to be given to a husband from a different family who could order me to open it. Marta Ballardo was never such a danger.

“Open the safe, Grandma,” Massimo says. “Please.”

With a shrug, as if to say, “You could have just asked in the first place,” Grandma spins the combination and opens the safe. Massimo reaches in, tosses away velvet jewelry boxes and stacks of cash, and grabs two accordion folders. He hands one to me and unspools the string on the other.

“Massimo,” Grandma says with her head tilted toward me, “do you think you should—”

“Can you get us some coffee?” He puts the file on the desk and spreads it open.

She hesitates, but Massimo waves a hand of dismissal. She bows her head and is gone.

“She’d hit me with a stick if I ever dismissed her like that,” I say as I unwind the string on my file.

“So then don’t.”

With a sigh, I sit to go through the papers, which are very weird. I start in the back, where the pages are yellowed and crumbling, written with looping script and quill pen. I assume they’re antiques, with weird spellings and an -e at the end of random nouns. Then, in the middle, they use a manual typewriter. Marriages. Births. All Colonia. Our family history is in my hands. In the front, a few documents are laser printed and signed in ballpoint.

I get lost in them. Admittedly, I’m kind of delighted to be in possession of something that grounds me to the world.

There are annulment papers for Peter Colonia and Mary Ballardo. Normal when a woman disappears.

But it’s paperclipped to something else.

CERTIFICATE OF SEVERENCE

Be it known that Mary Colonia nee Ballardo has been severed from the goode people of the Free Society of New Amsterdam. The Severed shall neither speak to them nor of them and shall enjoy none of the advantages or responsibilities of the Free Society, nor shall she seek the protections against those Outside, be they human or animal, or act of God Almighty.

Be it known that the Severed releases herself from the goode name Colonia and reverts to the name given by her father.

Be it also known that the Severed releases her husband, Peter Colonia, from enjoyment of her body and all responsibilities and privileges arising from the marriage. The pleasures of her womanhood are forfeited and shall be rendered. No repayment of dowry will be made.