I had also installed three weatherproof cameras on places I controlled or had permission to use, aimed at the visible drainage approaches without recording private interiors or unrelated neighbors' yards. One covered the rear boundary from my garage, another looked toward the common green space, and the third watched the approach to the retention area from an authorized vantage point. I posted a modest notice on my own property about recording, and Laura checked the locations so they would not create a new dispute about privacy.
The cameras were not a substitute for a professional survey, and they could not see underground. They could, however, establish whether somebody returned to the trench and whether new machinery entered the common area. Each unit had a timestamp and redundant storage. I checked the feeds after storms, then stopped myself from checking them too often; Emma needed a father, not a man who spent every evening staring at a screen waiting for somebody to do something wrong.
One Friday, the day before the work crew arrived, I had a difficult conversation with her about why the cameras were there. She had seen the little black housing above the garage door and asked whether I thought someone was trying to hurt us. I said I believed someone had changed the drainage in a way that was hurting homes, but I did not believe she was in immediate danger from a person.
"Then why watch?" she asked.
"Because when people disagree about what happened, a photograph can help us remember exactly. It's like keeping the score in a game so nobody has to argue about whether the ball went over the line."
She considered that. "Mommy said the truth shouldn't be a competition."
"Your mother was right. Sometimes people turn it into one anyway."
That evening we made pasta and watched a movie Sarah had loved. I turned my phone facedown and did not discuss the HOA. For ninety minutes there were no regulations, no hydrology calculations, no Brenda Sutton. Emma sat with her feet under a blanket and laughed so hard at a scene she'd seen before that I found myself laughing with her.
When I checked the weather before bed, another band of rain was forecast for early the next week. I looked out at the little strip of green space behind our property and hoped the county would arrive before more water came. I had no idea that Brenda and Dennis were about to do something that would make the inspection far more consequential than either of them intended.
At seven twenty on Saturday morning, I was turning pancakes in the kitchen when I heard a diesel engine outside. It was too deep for a lawn mower and too close for a delivery truck. Emma, standing on a chair beside the counter, heard it too and asked whether somebody was building a new playground.
I looked through the window. A compact excavator sat on the common green space with its boom raised beside the trench. Two workers were unloading coils of corrugated drainage pipe and bags of gravel from a flatbed trailer. At the edge of the work area, Brenda Sutton stood with a clipboard while a large man in a canvas jacket directed the equipment operator.