With funeral arrangements settled and my conscience clear, I was ready to come home and remember how to be human again.
Should have known it wouldn't be that simple.
The valley that greeted me looked like a luxury magazine threw up on my childhood.
Where wildflower meadows used to bloom, perfect green lawns stretched like artificial carpets.
The chemical bite of fertilizer had murdered the sweet mountain wildflower scent.
Eight glass-and-steel monstrosities dominated the landscape, each one worth more money than my family had seen in three generations.
And ruling over this environmental crime scene like some discount Disney villain was Vivian Ashworth.
Picture your worst HOA nightmare.
Give her a Dallas real estate license and enough money to buy a small country.
Fifty-four years old, blonde bob sharp enough to cut glass, and the kind of smile that says she's calculating your net worth while pretending to care about your day.
Word around town was she'd swooped in two years ago through some shell company, bought up land faster than a poker player with marked cards, then immediately crowned herself queen of Pine Ridge Estates.
After our roadside meet-cute, Queen Viv handed me a manila envelope thicker than a phone book.
Forty-seven separate violation notices for the cabin that predated her great-grandparents by about 50 years.
Get this.
Non-compliant roof color.
Apparently, my great-grandfather's natural cedar shingles, weathered to a beautiful silver-gray by decades of mountain weather, didn't match their architectural palette.
Unauthorized outbuildings.
That would be the 1920s root cellar that kept my family from starving during the Great Depression.
Landscaping violations, because apparently God's own wildflowers aren't on their approved plant list.
The grand total?
$73,500, plus $500 per day until I achieved compliance.
But here's what really crawled under my skin.
It wasn't just highway robbery disguised as community standards.
It was the way she said "certain types" with that particular tone that makes your jaw clench.
The way her nose wrinkled when mountain wind carried the honest scent of work clothes.
The subtle digs about transient lifestyles and questionable associations.
This woman had never worked a day of real labor in her manicured life.
But somehow I was the neighborhood cancer threatening her precious property values.
The paperwork gave me 30 days.
Pay up or face a property lien and foreclosure.
Thirty days to comply with rules I'd never agreed to, from an organization I'd never joined, over land my family had owned since before her parents were born.
That evening, I drove my rust-bucket F-250 to the county courthouse, diesel engine coughing like an old smoker.
Jolene Carpenter was locking up.
She'd been clerk there since Carter was president.
"Deck Forester," she said, her smile mixing warmth with sympathy. "Welcome home, honey. I'm real sorry about your mother."
After thanking her, I asked about the HOA filings.