Three weeks earlier, Cynthia Vale had no idea who I was. I preferred it that way.
My name is Daniel Mercer. I was sixty-one years old, and for most of my adult life, people in the county knew me because of the courthouse. But outside work, I had never cared much for titles. On the bench, I was Judge Mercer. At home, I was Daniel. And the old farmhouse west of Cedar Ridge was home in a way no other place had ever been.
My great-grandfather, Samuel Mercer, bought the first piece of that land in 1919 after returning from World War I. It wasn’t forty-six acres then. It was barely twenty. Over the years, he purchased adjoining parcels whenever neighboring farmers sold. My grandfather added another twelve acres. My father kept the place together through droughts, storms, recessions, and offers from developers who always promised him more money than he thought any piece of dirt should be worth.
By the time the property passed to me, it covered forty-six acres. There was a creek near the southern line, old oak trees along the county road, a barn that leaned slightly east because of a storm in 1987, and a two-story farmhouse that looked rough from the road but remained structurally sound. My father had lived there until the final year of his life. After he died, I kept the property but spent less time there.
Work was demanding. So was settling his estate. For nearly two years, I visited mostly on weekends. Grass grew high in places. Paint peeled from the porch columns. One section of fence collapsed during a storm. From the perspective of someone driving through the polished entrance of Cedar Ridge, I suppose the Mercer farmhouse looked abandoned.
But looking abandoned and being abandoned are not the same thing. Neither are looking poor and being poor. Cynthia would eventually learn both lessons.
Cedar Ridge had been built decades after my family bought the land. The subdivision spread along my eastern boundary, boasting large brick homes, stone monuments, decorative street lamps, landscaped medians, and a clubhouse with a resort-style pool. Homes there sold for prices my great-grandfather would have considered insane.
When Cedar Ridge was first developed, my father had dealt with the builders. They wanted to purchase our land. He refused. Then they wanted an access easement. He refused that too. The developers eventually redesigned the neighborhood so its western edge stopped exactly at our property line. The recorded subdivision plat showed it clearly. There was never a dispute.
Not until Cynthia.
I moved back into the farmhouse in early spring. I wasn’t retiring; I still worked. I simply decided I was tired of visiting my family home like a guest. The first few days were peaceful. I cleaned the porch, repaired a section of barn roof, and cut back weeds along the driveway.