People assumed anger was the main emotion. It was not.
I missed the sound.
A healthy lake is never silent. Frogs click and croak along the banks. Insects skim the surface. Fish strike at dawn. Turtles slide from logs. Birds argue from the cypress branches.
After the chemical treatment, the shoreline felt abandoned.
Sandra found me sitting on the dock after sunset two nights after the fish kill. We had spent hours helping wildlife staff collect dead fish for counting and disposal.
She sat beside me without speaking.
"I fed that bass like an idiot for three years," I said eventually.
"You liked her."
"She was a fish."
"People get attached to houseplants. At least Bertha could recognize breakfast."
I laughed once, and it hurt.
"Dad would have lost his mind."
Sandra leaned against my shoulder. "Your dad would have started calling lawyers before breakfast and then pretended your mother made him do it."
That sounded exactly right.
I looked across the dark water.
"I keep thinking about Grandpa. Seventy years. He kept this place clean through drought, storms, bad farming runoff, all of it."
"Then keep it clean for the next seventy."
"Might take years to restore."
"Then it takes years."
That was Sandra. No speech. No false promise that everything would be fine. Just a direction.
The next morning, I called Rebecca Torres.
Rebecca was an environmental attorney in Raleigh known for representing communities, landowners, and small municipalities in contamination disputes. She did not describe litigation as warfare the way television lawyers do.
She described it as sequencing.
"First, preserve evidence," she said during our first meeting. "Second, protect public health. Third, identify responsible parties. Fourth, separate what we can prove from what we suspect. Fifth, decide what remedy actually serves you."
I slid the deed across her desk.
She read the water-rights paragraph and lifted one eyebrow.
"Well. That complicates everybody's week."
Tom smiled. "That's what I said."
Rebecca reviewed the developer permits, the historical deed chain, the Clearwater work order, the environmental sampling, the Pristine Landscaping records, and the harassment file Sandra had organized chronologically.
By the time she finished, the table was covered in documents.
"You have several legal tracks," she said. "Property damage. Trespass. Potential claims involving improper interference with water rights. Possible fiduciary issues inside the HOA. Environmental enforcement belongs primarily to the government agencies, but your evidence can support it."
"Can I charge every homeowner for fifteen years of water?"
Rebecca looked at me carefully.
"You may have claims relating to historic use, depending on statutes, permits, doctrines of prescription, notice, and other issues. Anybody who promises you a thirty-million-dollar check before doing that analysis is selling entertainment, not law."
"Good. I don't want their money."
"What do you want?"
I answered without thinking.
"My lake alive again."