I tried not to imagine what conversations were happening behind those windows. The law would determine what Brenda had done. Her family would have to live with the consequences, and there was no satisfaction in knowing innocent people might suffer alongside her. I had lost enough in my own household to understand that private grief should not be treated as entertainment, even when it happened to somebody you disliked.
That night I found Sarah's handwriting on an index card tucked into a cookbook. It was a reminder about replacing a smoke-detector battery, written in her unmistakably neat block letters. Such a small thing nearly brought me to my knees. I stood with the card in my hand for several minutes, thinking about how fiercely she had cared about protecting ordinary life from preventable disasters.
Before bed, I checked the fuel enclosure one more time. The locks were secure, the ground was clean, and the inspection folder was back in its drawer. A faint breeze moved through the maple leaves above the driveway. I was tired of the conflict, but the equipment still had to be maintained, just as roads still had to be repaired and bank accounts reconciled.
Responsibility was seldom dramatic. It was the work you continued doing when the drama was finally over.
Monday morning, Brenda called one more meeting. The notice had gone out late the previous afternoon, asserting that the board needed to consider final enforcement against my property and my continued participation in association activities. Its language was grander than the board's authority. An HOA cannot simply erase a homeowner's ownership interest because the president dislikes him, but Brenda apparently believed that a sufficiently frightening motion could force me to sell, comply, or leave voluntarily.
I considered staying home. The association had already postponed the removal order, the financial petition was moving through the proper process, and the district attorney's office was handling the concerns I had reported. I was tired of sitting in fluorescent-lit rooms waiting for Brenda to invent another emergency. Yet the proposed vote still threatened tangible consequences to my property, and other homeowners had asked me to attend so the minutes could reflect a complete response.
I arrived at the community center shortly before nine. There were more cars than I had ever seen in the lot, including a few belonging to residents who had not attended a meeting since the subdivision was built. Dorothy stood near the door handing out copies of the relevant bylaw provisions. Thomas Reed was already seated at the board table, studying a folder with the expression of somebody hoping the day would end with fewer mistakes than it began.
Brenda wore a pale suit and pearls. Her hair was perfect, her makeup carefully applied, and her smile had the brittle quality of a porcelain cup with a crack nobody was supposed to notice. She greeted residents as though hosting a charity fundraiser. When she spotted me, she looked past my shoulder without acknowledgement and asked the secretary whether the attendance sheet was complete.