Chapter 14 - The Fourth of July Came Back Around
A year after Karen’s party, July Fourth returned.
For several weeks beforehand, I had wondered whether the date would bother me.
It did.
A little.
At 1:46 p.m.—almost exactly the time my phone had buzzed the previous year—I caught myself looking toward the backyard camera.
Daniel noticed.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
He looked at the pool.
“We could go somewhere.”
“No.”
That answer came easily.
I wasn’t giving away another holiday.
So we had our own party.
Small.
Tom and his family.
Priya and her husband.
My sister and her kids.
The new neighbors, Mike and Jenna Alvarez, who had introduced themselves politely six weeks earlier and had never once tried entering my property without invitation.
Radical behavior.
I made too much food.
Daniel burned the first batch of burgers.
Kids cannonballed into the pool.
Nobody photographed the yard for a business presentation.
Nobody claimed community rights.
Nobody brought a clipboard.
Around three, Jenna approached me holding her toddler’s float.
“I wanted to ask before I assume anything. If the kids ever want to swim together during the summer, should I text first?”
I almost hugged her.
Instead, I said, “Yes. Text first.”
“Obviously.”
“Apparently not to everyone.”
She laughed.
I did too.
That evening, fireworks began popping beyond the neighborhood roofs.
We gathered near the pool with lemonade and folding chairs.
My phone buzzed once.
Security alert.
For half a second, my body tightened.
Then I opened it.
A raccoon.
I laughed so hard Daniel thought something was wrong.
“What?”
“Our latest trespasser.”
I showed him.
He looked at the raccoon waddling beside the fence.
“Call the HOA.”
“Absolutely.”
We laughed until Priya demanded to know what was funny.
That was when I knew the house belonged to us emotionally again, not just legally.
The date no longer belonged to Karen either.
May you like
We had taken it back the ordinary way.
By living.
