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“How?”

She turned a page. “I don’t remember.”

Julie inspected one fingernail. “Wasn’t she adopted by Millie’s stepdaughter? You know, the one who married into the Marmell Pack.”

“Great-aunt Millie never had a stepdaughter,” I said, though I immediately questioned if my memory was correct.

Julie frowned.

Mom took another drink of coffee. “Yes, she did.”

“No, she had two sons.”

“She had two biological sons,” Mom corrected.

“Okay, then who was the stepdaughter?”

Mom and Julie looked at each other.

“Maribel?” Julie suggested.

“Marianne,” Mom said.

“Millie’s sister was Marianne.”

I left the kitchen with no useful information and a growing suspicion that the pack had survived for generations primarily because no government agency had ever asked us to document ourselves accurately.

Grandma Ruth was my next stop.

She sat on her front porch, shelling peas into an enamel bowl while Grandpa Alfonse watched a squirrel cross the yard with intense concentration.

“Grandma,” I said, sitting beside her, “how is Sloane related to us?”

She didn’t hesitate. “She came through the French exchange.”

I stared at her. “What French exchange?”

“The shifter exchange program.”

I choked back a laugh. “There’s no shifter exchange program.”

Grandma dropped another pea into the bowl. “There used to be.”

“When?”

“A while ago.”

“When, exactly, is a while ago?” I asked.

Grandpa Alfonse pointed toward the squirrel. “Thief.”

Grandma looked toward the yard. “Your grandfather believes that squirrel has been stealing tomatoes from our garden.”

“You don’t have tomato plants.”

She shrugged. “Just let him be.”

“Tell me about the exchange program.”