The attorney spent several days reviewing them.
Then she called.
"I think you need to come in."
The young farmer felt her stomach tighten.
"Is something wrong?"
The attorney hesitated.
"Not exactly."
There was a pause.
Then she continued.
"I think we've found part of the reason your neighbor wanted to buy the farm."
The document was a recorded drainage easement established decades earlier.
It preserved a route for water flowing from the upper reservoir toward the lower wetland storage area.
The agreement identified several properties that benefited from maintaining that route, including the young farmer's land and other farms downstream.
The easement didn't give her unlimited control over the reservoir.
Nor did it mean she could operate any structure without the necessary permissions.
But it established that the historical drainage function wasn't simply an abandoned feature someone could disregard at will.
The route had legal significance.
And the rights associated with it had never been properly extinguished.
The attorney placed a copy of the agreement beside the modern permit drawing.
For a moment, the young farmer simply stared.
Then she looked up.
"Does this mean they weren't allowed to block it?"
The attorney answered carefully.
"It means the alteration raises serious legal questions. We need to examine the current property boundaries, the recorded rights, and the approvals issued for the work."
The young woman nodded.
Then she asked why the largest grower had been so desperate to purchase her property.
The attorney opened another file.
The man had been negotiating a substantial expansion involving additional agricultural acreage and a planned storage and processing facility near the northern boundary.
The project depended on access across several parcels.
One of those was the young woman's farm.
Acquiring it would have simplified control over the lower drainage infrastructure and reduced the possibility of disputes from an independent downstream owner.
The attorney looked toward her.
"He didn't need your farm because it was worthless."
The young woman remained still.
"He needed it because it mattered."
For several seconds, she couldn't speak.
Then she thought about the first offer.
Seventy-five thousand dollars.
Four days after her father's funeral.
She remembered the man's sympathetic smile.
The casserole.