I had spent three decades being inspected. I knew that the fastest way through a legitimate inspection was to show the work and answer the questions. Owen checked the electrical connections, mounting points, cable protection, and the relevant code requirements without commenting on the neighbor dispute that had brought him there.
After forty-five minutes he closed his clipboard. "I don't see an electrical or building-code violation related to these cameras," he said. "The installation doesn't require the permit alleged in the complaint."
"Can I have that in writing?"
"You'll receive the inspection result through the city's normal system."
He hesitated before adding, "We have seen multiple complaints from the same general area lately. I'm not authorized to identify the callers or reach a conclusion about their motives, but city staff do log unfounded complaints. If you believe somebody is using the system to harass you, follow the records process and let the city review it."
I thanked him, which surprised us both. I had been braced for another argument, and he had given me nothing to argue with. He was not there to take sides; he was there to see whether the installation complied with the code.
After he left, Jerome exported the camera footage of the inspection and filed the written report beside it. Ethel brought over another folder containing three neighbors' inspection notices. The complaints concerned different properties and different alleged violations, but the pattern was becoming harder to ignore.
That night we met in my garage. Ethel sat on a folding chair beside the workbench while Jerome loaded the timeline onto his laptop. Tom Santos arrived carrying cookies Elena had made, Mrs. Denver brought a thermos of tea, and Calvin Webb stood near the truck with his arms crossed.
I had not invited them to plan a war. I had invited them because we had begun comparing experiences that everyone had previously been made to feel embarrassed about. When the stories came together, the similarities were unmistakable.
Mrs. Denver had been threatened with a lien over flowers that predated Delilah's presidency. Tom had been told he owed hundreds in basketball-hoop penalties but could find no board vote authorizing them. Calvin had received a warning for a trailer he did not own, based on a photograph of a visitor's vehicle taken from the street.
"She's not strong because she's right," Ethel said. "She's strong because each of us has been answering her alone."
I looked around at the people filling a room Sarah had once used to store tomato stakes. The garage smelled of coffee, machine oil, and fresh sawdust from a shelf Marcus and I had built over the weekend. For the first time since my wife's funeral, the noise of other people inside my house did not make me want to retreat.
"Then we stop answering alone," I said.