Chapter 5 - WHAT KATHERINE THOUGHT WIDOWS DID
Katherine came over that evening without Frank.
No makeup.
No pearls.
No arrogance polished for an audience.
Just anger.
Emily did not invite her inside.
They stood on opposite sides of the damaged pool.
“You’re really going to do this?” Katherine asked.
“You poured concrete into my pool.”
“I said we’ll fix it.”
“This isn’t about the pool anymore.”
Katherine looked toward the fence.
“This strip of land means nothing to you.”
Emily almost smiled.
“David said you used that exact sentence.”
Katherine’s face changed.
“What?”
“He kept notes.”
That landed.
Emily saw it.
Katherine took several seconds before speaking again.
“Your husband was impossible.”
“My husband understood where his property ended.”
“You had a huge yard.”
“So?”
“We needed the setback.”
“For your pool house.”
“For our investment.”
Emily stared at her.
“You moved my fence because you needed room for an investment?”
Katherine rolled her eyes.
“We replaced a storm-damaged fence. Everybody benefited.”
“You forged my signature.”
“I didn’t sign anything.”
“Frank?”
“I said I didn’t.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Katherine looked away.
Emily finally understood Katherine’s internal logic.
They had not seen Emily as someone they were stealing from.
They had seen a widow with too much yard.
Two children.
No construction experience.
No husband watching the stakes.
An easy correction.
Eight feet here.
Nine feet there.
A line nobody would question.
Especially because the person who would have questioned it was dead.
“You waited until David died,” Emily said.
Katherine looked back sharply.
“That’s disgusting.”
“Is it wrong?”
“We helped you after he died.”
Emily remembered the muffins.
Frank fixing the fence.
Katherine offering to take the children for an afternoon.
She suddenly felt nauseated.
“You were measuring me.”
Katherine scoffed.
“What does that even mean?”
“You were figuring out whether I’d notice.”
“That’s paranoid.”
“You knew David would never agree.”
“David was stubborn.”
“So you waited until he couldn’t stop you.”
Katherine’s voice rose.
“You had no use for that land!”
Emily stepped closer.
“That is not the same as giving it to you.”
Katherine opened her mouth.
Stopped.
Then tried a different approach.
“Do you know what happens if you push this?”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice lowered.
“Our pool house cost almost four hundred thousand dollars.”
Emily said nothing.
“The outdoor kitchen. Stonework. Drainage. Interior finish.”
Still nothing.
“If you force the boundary issue, you could destroy us financially.”
Emily looked at the swimming pool filled with concrete.
“You came into my backyard yesterday and intentionally destroyed something my dead husband built for our children.”
Katherine’s face tightened.
“And today you want me to protect your investment.”
Katherine stared.
Emily continued.
“You didn’t think about what this would cost you because you’ve spent three years believing I was too weak to make you pay.”
Katherine took a step backward.
Then said quietly:
May you like
“You still don’t know everything Frank did.”
Before Emily could ask what she meant, Katherine turned and walked away.
