Sometimes I invited friends. My younger sister, Marion, came with her family during long summer weekends, and her children learned to float there long before they became teenagers who preferred staying inside with headphones. My friend Elise had a standing invitation to join me on Friday afternoons when work allowed. A retired neighbor named Mrs. Harper occasionally sat on the patio with iced tea, declining every invitation to swim while explaining, with impressive persistence, that she had spent enough of her childhood around ponds to have nothing left to prove to bodies of water.
Those visits were genuine hospitality, freely offered and gladly received. They were also invitations. That distinction mattered to me even before I understood how comprehensively Sandra Fielding would disregard it. A person who is welcome at your home has not acquired a permanent right to enter it. A guest who is offered coffee has not become the owner of the coffee maker. These observations sound too obvious to require explanation, but I would eventually explain their equivalents to more people than I ever expected.
The pool was included on my homeowner's insurance declarations, and a service company named ClearWater Pool Care came every week during the season. Its technician, Rosa Delgado, was one of those quietly competent people whose work prevents everyone else from having to think about it. She tested the water, maintained the filter equipment, adjusted chemicals, and made recommendations about repairs before they became emergencies. I paid the invoices by bank transfer and filed them under the property account, along with utility bills and maintenance expenses.
Once a year I reviewed the budget. The pool had cost a significant amount to install, and continued to cost money in ways that never appeared in photographs. There were chemicals, replacement parts, electricity, service visits, occasional tile repair, cleaning, winter preparation, and the additional insurance protection I considered necessary for an in-ground pool. I did not resent those costs. I had chosen them in exchange for something I enjoyed.
What I did not choose was to finance a private swimming club for the people who lived next door.
Sandra Fielding moved into 16 Cloverfield Road nine years after I purchased my house. The property shared my eastern fence line, a six-foot wooden privacy fence that had stood long enough for its cedar boards to fade to a soft gray. Sandra arrived in a moving truck on a brilliant May morning with two children, a collection of white wicker patio furniture, and a voice that carried from one end of the street to the other. I watched her direct the movers while watering my flower beds. She corrected their handling of a lamp, adjusted the placement of a sofa before it crossed the threshold, and informed a driver that his vehicle was blocking her future view of the street.