I stayed silent when my neighbor took things from my property.

I even tried to ignore it when she started using my electricity.

But the night I finally stopped letting her walk over me, karma struck twice.

And the second blow was something she never saw coming.

Most mornings, the hardest decision I made was whether my tomatoes needed watering before breakfast.

At sixty-four, I liked my life that way.

After enough surprises to fill one lifetime, thirty-two years in the same little suburban house had taught me to appreciate ordinary days.

Then one morning, I poured my coffee, opened the electric bill, and discovered ordinary had apparently left without warning.

I stared at the amount.

Then stared again.

“That can’t be right,” I said aloud, though the only one listening was my cat.

The bill was almost twice what I normally paid.

Not ten or twenty dollars more.

Nearly double.

I checked the account number.

Then the meter reading.

Finally, I walked outside to the utility box beside my garage and squinted at the numbers as though they might become embarrassed and correct themselves.

They didn’t.

I went back inside and called my daughter, Diane.

Because when you’re a widow and something doesn’t make sense, apparently you call your daughter while pretending you only wanted to chat.

“Mom, did you leave the AC running with a window open again?”

“I did not,” I said. “I haven’t touched the thermostat since April.”

“Maybe it’s the fridge. Old fridges eat power.”

“The fridge is younger than you are, honey.”

She laughed.

I didn’t.

After we hung up, I stood at the kitchen window looking across the low fence toward my neighbor Monica’s house.

Monica was in her thirties, had three children, a husband who traveled frequently, and a shiny white Tesla that was almost always parked crooked in her driveway.

I’d already learned that Monica had a complicated understanding of where her belongings ended and everyone else’s began.

I just hadn’t realized how far that attitude extended.

Six months earlier, my garden gnome disappeared.

It was a ridiculous little decoration my husband had bought at a flea market the summer before he died.

He’d handed it to me with a grin.

“For the garden, El. Every yard needs a little nonsense.”

Two days after it vanished, I spotted it beside Monica’s front steps.

She had painted it blue.

I could still recognize the chipped nose.

I said nothing.

Then my lawn mower disappeared from the garage.

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