I’ve known people like that in smaller ways. Bosses who assume your weekends belong to them because they have a deadline. Relatives who take your time as a default setting because you’ve been reliable once too often. Friends who call you easygoing when what they really mean is that you haven’t made the mistake of telling them no yet. But I had never had anyone step onto my land, tear something down, and say the quiet part out loud.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I said.
He folded his arms. “You’re making this bigger than it needs to be.”
“No,” I said. “You already did that.”
He smiled again, but it didn’t quite hold. “Look, I get it. Change is uncomfortable. But once you get used to it, you’ll see this is better. More open. More communal. That whole boxed-in thing was—”
“I built that fence for a reason.”
He tilted his head. “For privacy? From who? Harold’s dead. We’re neighbors, not intruders.”
I held his eyes. “Put it back.”
He didn’t even pause. “That’s not happening.”
The grill sizzled behind him. One of the kids shouted something at Clare. A breeze moved through the trees and carried the smell of cut grass and charcoal and disturbed dirt. I remember all of that because I was concentrating so hard on not stepping forward and grabbing him by the front of his expensive shirt that every other sensory detail got painfully sharp.
