She talked about checking maps, finding qualified professionals, and respecting property boundaries.
The interviewer asked what she would do differently if she could relive the incident.
Paige said she would still preserve the recording and call for help, but she would stop reading every hostile comment online.
When she told me afterward, I was proud of the answer.
I had watched the dispute make her anxious and guarded.
Now she had found a way to turn part of that experience into a useful discipline.
A week later, she received the internship offer.
We celebrated with takeout and a movie neither of us had seen.
Halfway through, my phone lit up with a notification from the neighborhood message board.
Someone had posted another argument about Gloria.
I started to reach for the screen.
Paige gently moved the phone onto the coffee table face down.
“That conversation can exist without us for two hours,” she said.
I agreed and let the movie continue.
It was a small moment, but I recognized it as another form of recovery.
The investigation needed attention when evidence or decisions required it.
It did not deserve unlimited access to our evenings.
CHAPTER 35: THE LETTER FROM VICTOR
Victor sent a letter several months after the pool incident.
He said the dispute had damaged his business and that customers were treating every service he provided with suspicion.
He wrote that he had started the drainage initiative because residents had legitimate maintenance concerns.
He acknowledged that the demonstration at my pool was wrong but disputed the suggestion that he planned every detail.
Cecily reviewed the letter and advised me that I did not need to respond.
I kept it in the correspondence folder.
I was willing to believe some concerns had been legitimate.
Thomas’s reports had identified sediment and maintenance needs in the old drainage route.
But a legitimate problem did not authorize a fabricated emergency or the use of false property permissions.
Victor’s letter spent more space describing the damage to his reputation than the damage to mine.
That imbalance told me something about what he still could not face.
Several former customers had requested billing reviews from his company.
Others said they remained satisfied with work he performed and did not believe every contract was dishonest.
Both accounts could be true.
A business could complete useful services and still engage in misconduct on a particular project.
I reminded myself of that whenever neighbors tried to reduce the story to one sweeping judgment.
One afternoon, I passed Victor’s green truck parked outside a hardware store.
