We never spoke during those 18 days. Not once. There was nothing left to say. By the end of it, the hillside looked like it used to, maybe even better, honestly. The grading was precise, the soil stabilized, fresh feed laid down evenly across the surface. If you didn’t know what had happened, you’d never guess there had been a road carved through it just weeks before. The geotechnical engineers signed off on it. Full restoration. No remaining risk. Clean. And just like that, it was over.
Or at least my side of it was. Because Rick still had his driveway. Same awkward angle. Same tight space. Same problem he started with. A couple weeks after everything wrapped up, I happened to be outside when he was trying to back his boat trailer in again. I didn’t plan it, didn’t go out there to watch, just happened to be there. And sure enough, same routine. Back up, stop, pull forward, adjust, get out, look, shake his head. Again.
And I’ll be honest, I didn’t feel satisfaction the way people think you would in a situation like that. It wasn’t, « Ha, you got what you deserved. » It was quieter, more like, « That’s the reality of it. » He wanted an easier way. He found one, and it cost him $63,000 just to end up exactly where he started. We never had a conversation after that. Not a real one. Just the occasional nod if we happened to cross paths, the kind you give a stranger, not a neighbor.
Whatever version of neighborly existed before, that was gone. And maybe that’s the part people don’t think about when they hear stories like this. It’s not just about the money. It’s about what it changes. You stop assuming people will respect boundaries just because they exist. You stop thinking silence means understanding. Sometimes silence just means someone is waiting for an opportunity. If I had gone over there that first day, knocked on his door, tried to talk it out, maybe it would have played out differently.
Maybe he would have apologized. Maybe he would have offered to fix it. Or maybe he would have minimized it, delayed it, turned it into something that dragged on for months with no real resolution. I don’t know. What I do know is this, the moment he decided to bring in an excavator and cut into land that wasn’t his, he made it a legal problem. And once it’s a legal problem, you solve it with structure, not emotion.
Still, I think about it sometimes. Not the damage, not the money, but that decision point. The moment he stood there, probably looking at that same hillside, thinking, « No one’s here. I can just do this. » That’s the part that sticks. So, now I’m curious.
