I walked over calmly.
“Good morning,” I said.
She stiffened. “Morning.”
“Doing some gardening?” I asked, glancing at her sleeves.
She looked down and went pale.
“I’ve been having trouble with someone helping themselves to my vegetables,” I continued evenly. “And my camera tells a very clear story.”
She tried to deny it at first, then to minimize it. I didn’t raise my voice. I simply explained what the garden meant to me—how it had helped me through grief, how it connected me to my husband’s memory. Then I gave her a choice: apologize and stay out of my yard, or I would take the footage to the authorities and the neighborhood association.
She apologized.
A week later, she appeared at my door with bags of store-bought produce, clearly resentful. I handed them back.
“I don’t want replacements,” I said quietly. “I want boundaries.”
