“You wanted to humiliate me.”
There it was.
Not hurt.
Not the pool guests.
Not Miguel.
Not Dolores’s money.
Not my locks.
Humiliation.
That was the injury Denise understood.
“You know what I think?” I said.
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“I think you still believe the worst thing that happened was people seeing you lose.”
Her face went still.
“You stole from me for years.”
“Allegedly.”
“Don’t.”
She looked away.
I continued.
“You lied about my uncle. You filed complaints because I wouldn’t cooperate. You tried to use the county to pressure me. You charged your neighbors for water you weren’t buying. You did the same kind of thing to Dolores.”
“That is not what happened.”
“It’s exactly what happened.”
“You don’t understand what it takes to maintain a community like Silver Creek.”
“I understand enough.”
“No. You understand pipes.”
I almost smiled.
“Pipes are simpler.”
She folded her arms.
“Of course they are.”
“They don’t care whether you’re beautiful.”
Her eyes flashed.
“They don’t care whether you have money. They don’t care who your friends are. They don’t care whether everybody in a meeting is afraid to disagree with you. Pressure goes where pressure goes. Water follows the path available to it. A bad connection eventually causes trouble.”
“Spare me the metaphor.”
“I’m not talking about you anymore.”
That silenced her.
For several seconds, we stood with the fence between us.
Then she said, more quietly, “Do you know why I used your well?”
I waited.
“My city water bill was ridiculous the first summer.”
I almost laughed.
“That’s it?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“The pool, landscaping, irrigation. I was paying for water constantly.”
“So you used mine.”
“It was there.”
“That isn’t an explanation.”
“It wasn’t hurting you.”
“My pump ran hours it wasn’t supposed to.”
“You had water.”
“I had electricity bills.”
“You could afford them.”
I stared at her.
And suddenly Curtis’s explanation made more sense than anything Denise had said.
Entitlement is not always believing the other person has nothing.
Sometimes it is believing they have enough that taking a little does not count.
“You still don’t understand,” I said.
“Understand what?”
“It never mattered whether I could afford it.”
She looked at me.
“It mattered that it wasn’t yours.”
She said nothing.
That was the last conversation I ever had with Denise Caldwell.
The moving truck left that afternoon.
Her Porsche followed an hour later.
The house sat empty for several weeks before the new owners arrived.
A family with two children.
The father came to the fence the first weekend.
“Mr. Harden?”
“Jake.”
“Jake. I’m Eric.”
We shook hands.
He looked uncomfortable.
“I assume you know what I’m about to ask.”