She fetched fresh rubber bands. We started before dusk and worked street by street, knocking instead of just hanging notices whenever we could. Some doors opened with relief. Others remained shut behind curtains that moved slightly as we approached.
On Sycamore, a young mother named Lucy Martin answered with the security chain still on. A baby fussed somewhere inside. She read the warning, then lifted her eyes to my face.
"The association says you made up the test results."
I could see a sterilizing rack on her kitchen counter through the narrow opening. Beside it sat a container of infant formula. The sight frightened me more than anything Diane had said that morning.
"The laboratory has two confirmed positive samples," I told her. "Additional samples are being tested. I can't ask you to trust an argument between me and the board. I can show you the lab report. But please, please don't mix formula with that tap water. Use sealed, safe water and follow your baby's clinician's guidance."
She hesitated. Then she unhooked the chain and took the notice. "I've been boiling it."
"Don't rely on boiling for an unknown contamination event," I said. "Please use an alternative safe supply until we know exactly what we're dealing with."
She looked over her shoulder toward the baby and swallowed. "Do you have any more bottled water?"
"In the truck. I'll bring you two cases."
As I carried them up her steps, I realized how absurd the situation had become. I was being accused of withholding water from children while spending our savings buying them water I knew was safe.
We ordered four more pallets through the warehouse account, making six in all. The charge had grown large enough that the card company called to verify it wasn't fraud. Elaine answered while I was backing the trailer toward the gate. I expected her to ask when we'd stop spending money. Instead she asked whether we had remembered to reserve extra cases for households with infants and residents who couldn't carry them.
My wife had started keeping a separate list. She knew which houses had elderly residents, which families had newborns, and who had called her asking for help without wanting the neighbors to know. She delivered cases to porches in the afternoon and never told anyone that the association had stopped returning our requests for reimbursement.
On Thursday morning I visited Thomas Avery, a retired teacher who lived in Cedar Hollow's oldest row of houses. He had taught history for thirty-six years, and his front porch was filled with potted herbs and worn wooden chairs. He read the notice in silence and invited me inside for coffee made with bottled water.
"There's something about this I don't understand," he said.
"Only one thing?"
He almost smiled. "The board collected an infrastructure assessment from us for six years. My statement says it's for water system modernization. Yet they insist you haven't paid for the work. Where did our money go?"
"I've never received those assessment funds. They stopped paying the service account twenty-six months ago."