A human skull. A cowrie shell. A manumission paper. These and other items unearthed during renovations at the 18th century manse inherited by John Marsh suggest his ancestors were enslavers. The freedom paper refers to an enslaved woman called Violet. And when John’s wife, Betsy, “sees” a young Black woman in period servant’s dress in their living room, she concludes it must be Violet. Betsy becomes obsessed with finding out who Violet was and what happened to her. Her dogged research reveals some unsettling truths: about the Marsh family’s profitable engagement in the slave trade; about local resistance to confronting the community’s hidden history of slavery; and about her husband’s conviction that White people bear no responsibility for addressing slavery’s legacy. The experience causes Betsy to question her marriage, her priorities, and her future.