That principle served me well in the military, where careless assumptions could cost money or put people at risk. It also made me less susceptible to impressive titles. I respected legitimate authority and knew that communities, military units, and families needed rules to function. But a rule existed in language and records, not in the volume of the person invoking it. The distinction had become almost physical for me by the time I reached middle age.
That evening, Emily and I took Odin on his usual walk. He was in the awkward stage of training where he could ignore a barking dog across a street but could not resist investigating a wet leaf. We stopped near the municipal corridor, and I showed Emily exactly where the grill would stand. She looked toward the clubhouse, then at the blank row of windows facing the road.
"You realize she'll see you," she said.
"She may."
"You also realize she might call Richard, who might call the police, and our perfectly good Saturday becomes a civic seminar?"
"I realize all of that."
She turned to me. "Then why not just cook somewhere else? Seriously, Mark. I'm not being difficult. We could use a park, visit my parents, borrow Gary's backyard. Why choose the one spot that will make somebody angry?"
I had been expecting that question, but I did not want to answer with a rehearsed argument. I watched Odin sniff a line of clover while I worked through it. The first grilling dispute had ended with us complying, and the board had threatened consequences against a home Emily owned even though it could not identify a specific rule. If we responded to every unsupported threat by avoiding a lawful activity, the threats would eventually define more of our lives than the written restrictions did.
"Because we did what they asked," I said. "We shut off the first grill. We asked for the actual rule. Then they threatened your unit. I don't want every dispute to end with you paying a fine because the board finds questions irritating."
"That's a good answer," she said quietly. "It doesn't erase the risk."
"I know. We don't have to do this if you don't want to. It's your home."
She studied me, surprised enough that she smiled. "You'd really put the folder away?"
"I'll put it away. I might frame the survey because it's a beautiful document, but I'll put the folder away."
Emily laughed, then became serious again. "I want us to live in a place where we can ask reasonable questions. And I want to know the board can't just threaten the owner whenever the person living with her says something unwelcome. So let's cook dinner. Properly. And let's stop if there's an actual safety concern."
We were not simply planning to irritate Linda, though I would be lying if I said I had no idea she might react. I placed the documents in a blue three-ring binder with labeled tabs: Property, Survey, Permission, Fire Guidance, Association Rules, Correspondence, and Incident Notes. I included the earlier dog reminder and the email containing Richard's warning. The last tab remained mostly empty, with a printed sheet for documenting any future conversation accurately.