Bones wash up in a creek after a rainstorm.

The family matriarch dies, leaving her estate to her heirs—contingent on whether they can show they’re something more than merely greedy. But will the provisions her lawyers worked out hold up in court?

All those things, and monuments over empty graves; a woman who attends any funeral she finds out about; a relative who may or may not be responsible for a cousin’s death—all are to be recorded in Maggie’s files, since she’s inherited the role of “family historian,” somewhat against her will.

But what actually constitutes “family”?

She ponders this as on the fading of her long marriage, and as she and her cousin Berry speculate on how the relatives will be spending their inheritance….