Chapter 4 - THE SURVEY FLAGS
The surveyor came three days later.
Dale watched from his deck.
Of course he did.
Rob had warned me not to engage.
So I gardened.
Badly.
I spent forty minutes moving the same three weeds while pretending not to watch the equipment.
Eventually, bright survey markers appeared.
One near the back corner.
Another beside the fence.
Then one close to the apple tree.
The surveyor called Rob over.
They spoke quietly.
Rob looked toward me.
I knew.
The legal property line ran behind the fence.
And the tree trunk stood entirely on our parcel.
Not barely.
The nearest edge of the trunk was several inches inside.
The center was farther.
I felt a childish rush of victory.
Then shame.
This was still a tree.
Dale was still a grieving widower who had maintained it for years.
The issue was not winning an apple.
The issue was what he did to Maya and Leo.
Dale came outside before the surveyor finished.
“What are those markers doing in my yard?”
The surveyor answered professionally.
“They’re indicating the surveyed boundary.”
“That’s wrong.”
“We can provide the certification to the property owner.”
“I am the property owner.”
Rob walked over.
“Not on this side of the line.”
Dale stared at him.
Then at the flag.
His face reddened.
“That fence has been there thirteen years.”
“Yes.”
“That tree is mine.”
“The survey doesn’t appear to support that.”
“I planted it.”
I remembered Joanne’s story.
“No,” I said.
Dale looked at me.
“Ellen and Paul planted it.”
His face changed.
Not dramatically.
Enough.
“You talked to Joanne.”
“Yes.”
“She doesn’t know anything.”
“She lived here twenty-eight years.”
“Dale,” Rob said calmly, “we’re not doing this in the yard.”
“You people move in two years ago and suddenly think you own everything.”
I almost laughed.
“That’s literally what a deed does.”
Rob gave me a look.
I stopped.
Dale pointed toward the tree.
“I maintained that tree for fifteen years.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
His voice cracked slightly.
For the first time, the territorial old man disappeared.
A widower appeared underneath.
“Ellen planted that.”
I softened.
“I know.”
“She wanted those apples every August.”
“I’m not trying to erase her.”
“You’re taking her tree.”
That was when I understood the emotional problem.
Dale had attached ownership to memory.
If the tree belonged legally to someone else, he seemed to hear that as someone claiming Ellen had never existed.
Those were not the same thing.
But grief does not always care about distinctions.
I said carefully:
“Dale, we can talk about the tree.”
He looked at me.
“But first you need to understand something.”
“What?”
“You do not reach over my fence and order my children around again.”
His face hardened.
“They were taking—”
“No.”
I did not yell.
“They were six and seven. If you have a problem involving my property, you speak to me or Rob.”
Silence.
“And you never call them thieves again.”
Dale turned and went inside.
No apology.
Not yet.
But for the first time since the incident, I no longer cared about forcing one immediately.
May you like
We had the boundary.
Now we needed to decide what kind of neighbors we wanted to become after knowing it.
