Inside, the cover of the glossy pamphlet was worth framing: fields of red clover at sunset, farmlands tucked in beneath gentle pink clouds. Stamped across the sky were the words: An Interstate Natural Gas Facility on My Land, What Do I Need to Know?

I skimmed the FAQs. Are Pipelines Safe? Can the Pipeline Company Use Eminent Domain? The answer to both questions, according to the beautiful pamphlet, was Yes. I searched for something specific to our twenty acres, but didn’t find it. Folded inside the back cover was a letter from someone called the right-of-way agent. The letter began by saying that the pipeline company had recently decided to abandon certain parts of the line and to repurpose others. It ended by saying that the company strove to be a good neighbor and to provide safe, clean, and reliable energy to the nation’s consumers and industry. The many pages in between were a jumble of docket numbers, parentheses, and blurry zoomed-out maps.

“Anything important?” asked Lily, needles clicking again.

“Hard to say,” I said. “It’s got something to do with the pipeline.”

“Is it about that helicopter?” she asked.

“Could be,” I said. I handed Lily the pages. She put down her needles and leafed through them.

“It looks like they’re going to be repurposing pretty soon, whatever that means. Maybe in the spring,” she said.

“I’ll ask Aldi about it,” I said. “His place is right on the line, too. He might’ve got the same mail.”

Lily handed the letter back to me. “Couldn’t be any worse than what went through there before,” she said. She began to unravel the red tam-o’-shanter.

“Still,” I said, “might be good to find out.” I put the glossy pamphlet, the letter, the pile of maps and numbers back in the envelope. “Have you heard from Karen?” I asked, since we were on the subject of interstate communication. She didn’t bother to answer, just raised her eyes to me like, What do you think?

“What about you?” she asked. “Has that lawyer had any more bright ideas?”

Heat came to my face. “Look,” I said. “That man. He’s. He’s damaged. I’m not sure how good he’s going to be getting Perley back. His talents might lie elsewhere. I can’t explain it except to say we might need to focus on cleaning this place up rather than expecting any legal miracles.”