My new neighbor treated my lawn like her private parking lot and laughed when I objected. I planned a petty lesson, never guessing her grudge against me had started fifteen years earlier.
I had lived in that house for twenty-nine years, long enough to know which floorboard creaked in winter and which corner of the garden caught the first sun in spring.
Before Audrey arrived, my days were wonderfully predictable.
I had lived in that house for twenty-nine years.
After my husband died, that routine became even more important.
Keeping the house and garden in order gave my hands something to do when the rooms felt too quiet.
The house also carried pieces of the life I had before retirement. Photographs from sports competitions lined one wall of my study, alongside old judging credentials, plaques, and more awards than I knew what to do with.
