700 a.m. I’m drinking coffee on my dock when the HOA president crosses my lawn with a surveyor and two sheriff’s deputies. Darlene doesn’t knock. She thrusts a clipboard at me, screaming, “I have 48 hours to get off Community Lake access or will remove you.” Her perfume hits me before her words do.
Expensive, aggressive, suffocating. Her Lexus idols in my driveway, driver’s door still open like she owns the place. The deputies look uncomfortable. Neighbors are filming from their porches. I take another sip. Stay silent because inside my house is a 1947 deed proving I don’t just own this property.
I own the entire lake bed. Every dock on Pine Brook Lake sits on land I control, including hers. She just started a war with the only person who can legally kick her off the water.
3 months before Darlene invaded my property, I was somebody else entirely. 45 years old, 22 years as a firefighter, paramedic, the guy who pulls you out of burning cars and keeps your heart beating until the ER can take over. I took early retirement for one reason. My wife Lucia died 14 months ago. Cancer, the kind that moves fast and ignores all your bargaining.
