Chapter 3 - THE CLOSING SURVEY
Rob found the survey in a blue folder behind our mortgage documents.
We spread it across the kitchen table.
I expected nothing useful.
Then Rob pointed.
“Look.”
The survey showed the legal property lines.
The wooden fence did not sit directly on one of them.
At the back half of the yard, the fence was offset.
Not much.
Approximately eighteen to twenty-four inches depending on location.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the fence may not be the boundary.”
I stared toward the window.
The apple tree’s trunk was on what appeared visually to be Dale’s side.
But if the survey was accurate, appearances meant very little.
“How far is the trunk from the fence?”
Rob looked outside.
“Maybe a foot.”
My pulse changed.
“No.”
“I’m not saying anything yet.”
“Rob.”
“I’m serious.”
He tapped the survey.
“This is from the purchase file. We need a current survey before making assumptions.”
“Why would someone build the fence inside our property?”
“Could’ve been roots. Terrain. Agreement between old owners. Could be the old survey is wrong. Could be I’m reading it wrong.”
He took out his phone.
“Which is why we don’t touch anything.”
That explained the rake.
The fallen apples created a visible record of where the branches extended naturally.
My photographs also captured the fence, trunk area, branch positions and Dale reaching across.
Not perfect evidence of ownership.
But useful context.
The next morning, Rob called a licensed surveyor.
I called our title company and requested the older property records.
Then I did something less technical.
I called the woman who sold us the house.
Her name was Joanne Kelly.
She had lived there for twenty-eight years before moving to North Carolina.
I had not spoken to her since closing.
She remembered the tree immediately.
“Oh, Ellen’s apple tree.”
“Ellen?”
“Dale’s wife.”
My stomach tightened.
“Did they plant it?”
There was a pause.
“Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
Joanne laughed softly.
“Dale still fighting about those apples?”
I sat up.
“You knew he did that?”
“He became funny about the tree after Ellen died.”
“How was it planted?”
Joanne explained.
Thirty-four years earlier, she and her husband, Paul, were close friends with Dale and Ellen.
The couples practically shared the backyards.
Ellen wanted an apple tree.
Paul suggested planting it near the property line where both families could enjoy the shade.
Then came the detail that changed everything.
“The trunk was planted on our side.”
I stopped breathing.
“Our side?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Paul dug the hole.”
“Why does it look like it’s in Dale’s yard?”
“Because of the new fence.”
“What new fence?”
Joanne told me the wooden fence had been installed about thirteen years earlier.
They placed it several feet inside their legal line in places to avoid a drainage swale, tree roots and an old utility access strip.
The apple tree ended up visually on Dale’s side.
But according to Joanne, the trunk remained legally within the parcel she later sold to us.
“Did you give Dale the tree?”
“No.”
“Did he think you did?”
“Not while Paul was alive.”
“What happened after?”
Joanne became quiet.
“Ellen died. Then Paul died two years later. Dale started taking care of the tree.”
“Did you let him?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t care about the apples anymore.”
That was different from ownership.
Permission.
Habit.
Grief.
Years.
Enough ingredients for certainty to grow where paperwork said something else.
Before hanging up, Joanne said:
“Sarah?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be cruel about Ellen.”
“I won’t.”
“She loved that tree.”
“I understand.”
“But Dale has known for years where the line actually is.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“He was there when the fence went in.”
So this was not simply an innocent boundary mistake.
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Dale knew the fence was not the property line.
The question was whether he had convinced himself that years of caring for the tree made it his anyway.
