Margaret smiled. "That must make the house feel empty."
"Not really," Rebecca said, and walked inside.
We should have paid more attention to that exchange.
The afternoon everything broke open was a Thursday. It was hot and cloudless—the kind of Ohio summer afternoon when shirts dried almost as fast as I could hang them. I had washed two loads: work shirts, Hannah’s T-shirts, jeans, towels, and a set of light-blue sheets.
Around 2:15 PM, while working from home, I heard a metallic snap outside. I ignored it. Then another. Sharper.
I walked toward the back door. Through the glass, I saw Margaret. She was standing beside my clothesline, inside my fenced backyard, holding a pair of enormous orange-handled scissors. Before my brain fully understood what I was seeing, she grabbed one of my blue work shirts and cut straight through it.
"Margaret!" I yelled, opening the door.
She turned, then deliberately cut another. She did not look embarrassed. She did not drop the scissors. Instead, she pointed at the clothesline.
"This neighborhood has standards."
I stared at the shirt hanging in two pieces. "You came into my yard to cut my clothes?"
"You've been warned."
"No, I haven't."
"The committee has received repeated complaints."
"From you," I countered, stopping several feet away. "Put the scissors down."
Margaret smiled, then cut through one of Rebecca’s towels. The sound of the blades closing made something in me go very still.
"Leave," I said quietly.
"You don’t understand how serious this has become," she ignored me, snipping another shirt. "You won't be hanging anything here much longer anyway."