My Neighbor Built a Balcony Over My Backyard While I Was Away So I Made Him Tear It Down

of grass in the same warm way it had since the day I moved in. The shadow was wrong. The proportions were wrong. And when I looked up to find the source of it, the whole situation came into focus at once.

I had been gone for a week. Guard training out in Missouri, routine stuff, nothing I needed to think about beyond packing the right gear and making continue reading …