Chapter 11 - THE PRICE OF EIGHT FEET
The engineering report was brutal.
Approximately thirty-one percent of the pool-house footprint crossed onto Emily’s parcel.
Part of the foundation interfered with a drainage route serving the rear of both properties.
The outdoor kitchen crossed significantly.
A section of patio and landscaping crossed.
The detached garage had a smaller encroachment.
Moving the fence alone solved nothing.
Katherine proposed buying the strip.
Offer one:
$45,000.
Emily declined.
Offer two:
$80,000 plus complete pool restoration.
Declined.
Offer three:
$125,000.
Emily read it twice.
Grace asked why she didn’t take it.
They sat beside what remained of the pool.
By then most of the concrete had been removed at considerable cost, but restoration had not begun.
“Wouldn’t that fix everything?” Grace asked.
“No.”
“We don’t even use that side of the yard.”
Emily almost laughed.
The same sentence.
She looked at her seventeen-year-old daughter.
“This isn’t about whether we use it.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Someone deciding that because we weren’t paying attention, they could take something.”
Grace looked toward the Walsh property.
“But a hundred twenty-five thousand dollars is a lot.”
“It is.”
“You could rebuild the pool.”
“Yes.”
“Then why not?”
Emily thought of David.
Not sentimentally.
Practically.
He had been asked to sell.
He said no.
Repeatedly.
Then he died.
The line moved.
Accepting money now would not be wrong because David wanted the land forever. Dead people do not get to control the living.
Emily could sell if she wanted.
That was the point.
She wanted the choice to remain hers.
“I may sell that strip someday,” she told Grace.
Her daughter looked surprised.
“Really?”
“Maybe.”
“Then why not to them?”
“Because I refuse to negotiate while their building is sitting on it as pressure.”
Grace slowly understood.
“If you sell now, they win because they took it first.”
Emily nodded.
“I want the land returned. Then, if I ever decide to sell, it will be because I chose to.”
Grace looked at the orange stakes.
“That sounds expensive.”
Emily smiled faintly.
“For them.”
The mediation happened six weeks later.
Katherine arrived furious.
Frank arrived exhausted.
Their insurer arrived practical.
Emily arrived with Sarah.
The mediator spent nine hours moving between rooms.
By evening, one proposal remained.
The Walshes would remove all encroaching portions.
Restore drainage.
Reconstruct boundary improvements correctly.
Pay for pool restoration and related property damage.
Emily would waive certain additional civil claims after successful completion.
Katherine refused.
“You want us to tear down half our life.”
Emily looked at her.
“No.”
She pointed toward the plan.
“I want you to remove your property from mine.”
Katherine began crying.
Real tears this time.
“This could bankrupt us.”
Emily remembered the concrete pouring over David’s pool.
Then Katherine’s email.
Widows don’t want fights.
Emily answered quietly.
“You knew where the line was before you poured the foundation.”
Katherine stared at her.
And for the first time, she had nothing to say.
But the final surprise came from Frank.
May you like
He picked up the pen.
And signed.
