She came closer and looked at the maps. He had marked them — small, precise notations in a handwriting that was already more disciplined than most adults she knew, identifying the changes in border delineation, the shifts in road infrastructure, the places where towns had grown or shrunk. She looked at the notations for a moment.
"What's your conclusion?" she said.
"Three of the border changes are administrative," he said, pointing. "They moved the line on paper but nothing changed on the ground. Two of them are real — the town here expanded into previously disputed territory and the border adjusted to reflect that, and this section here contracted because the population left after the flooding eight years ago." He paused. "The flooding that was also when my mother—" He stopped. Restarted cleanly. "The flooding eight years ago."
She looked at the map and not at him, which she judged was what was needed. "The road changes?"
