A typed signature identified the author as the Meadowbank Neighborhood Wellness Council.

I had lived on this street for seven years and had never heard of such a council.

At the bottom, a second paragraph warned that public allegations against neighboring residents could be considered harassment.

It was not difficult to understand whom the paragraph addressed.

I called the phone number listed on the document.

A recorded message said the mailbox was full.

I searched the county’s public business index for the council’s name and found nothing that established it as an official authority.

I sealed the letter in a folder with the pool photographs.

For the first time, the garbage looked less like childish vandalism and more like a plan.

Vivian did not simply want me angry.

She wanted me to stop looking across the fence.

On Saturday, I bought a new camera with a wider lens and mounted it on the inside of my garage facing only my own yard.

I placed a motion light above the existing gate and replaced the broken latch with a lock that could not be reached from the other side.

Those changes cost me nearly three hundred dollars, money I had intended to spend on Lucy’s birthday party.

She watched me work from the back steps with her knees drawn up beneath her chin.

“Are we still having everyone over next weekend?” she asked.

I tightened the final screw before answering.

“We might need to change the plan.”

“Because of the woman next door?”

I set the screwdriver down.

“Because I need to make sure the pool is safe.”

Lucy studied the greenish water and nodded with a seriousness no child should need at her age.

“We can go bowling,” she said.

I wanted to promise that next summer would be different.

I had made too many promises about what next summer would be like when her mother was sick.

Instead, I said bowling sounded like a good idea.

That afternoon, the doorbell rang while I was ordering replacement filter cartridges.

An elderly man stood on my porch with a grocery bag full of apples.

He introduced himself as Leonard Pike, a retired school custodian who lived around the corner.

I recognized his face from the bus stop but had never learned his name.

“My wife says you are the gentleman whose swimming pool keeps getting ruined,” he said.

I confirmed that I was.

Leonard looked over his shoulder before handing me an apple.