I stayed silent when my neighbor took things from my property.<\/p>\n
I even tried to ignore it when she started using my electricity.<\/p>\n
But the night I finally stopped letting her walk over me, karma struck twice.<\/p>\n
And the second blow was something she never saw coming.<\/p>\n
Most mornings, the hardest decision I made was whether my tomatoes needed watering before breakfast.<\/p>\n
At sixty-four, I liked my life that way.<\/p>\n
After enough surprises to fill one lifetime, thirty-two years in the same little suburban house had taught me to appreciate ordinary days.<\/p>\n
Then one morning, I poured my coffee, opened the electric bill, and discovered ordinary had apparently left without warning.<\/p>\n
I stared at the amount.<\/p>\n
Then stared again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat can\u2019t be right,\u201d I said aloud, though the only one listening was my cat.<\/p>\n
The bill was almost twice what I normally paid.<\/p>\n
Not ten or twenty dollars more.<\/p>\n
Nearly double.<\/p>\n
I checked the account number.<\/p>\n
Then the meter reading.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
I went back inside and called my daughter, Diane.<\/p>\n
Because when you\u2019re a widow and something doesn\u2019t make sense, apparently you call your daughter while pretending you only wanted to chat.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom, did you leave the AC running with a window open again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not,\u201d I said. \u201cI haven\u2019t touched the thermostat since April.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it\u2019s the fridge. Old fridges eat power.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fridge is younger than you are, honey.\u201d<\/p>\n
She laughed.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
After we hung up, I stood at the kitchen window looking across the low fence toward my neighbor Monica\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d already learned that Monica had a complicated understanding of where her belongings ended and everyone else\u2019s began.<\/p>\n
I just hadn\u2019t realized how far that attitude extended.<\/p>\n
Six months earlier, my garden gnome disappeared.<\/p>\n
It was a ridiculous little decoration my husband had bought at a flea market the summer before he died.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d handed it to me with a grin.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the garden, El. Every yard needs a little nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two days after it vanished, I spotted it beside Monica\u2019s front steps.<\/p>\n
She had painted it blue.<\/p>\n
I could still recognize the chipped nose.<\/p>\n
I said nothing.<\/p>\n
Then my lawn mower disappeared from the garage.<\/p>\n
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,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n