That night, I couldn’t sleep. So I lay there in the dark and thought about January of 1998.
I had a client back then. A seventy-one-year-old grandmother on Mangrove Avenue. Her name was Opal.
Her own son had changed the locks on her house while she was at a doctor’s appointment. Then he called the gas company and had her heat shut off. In January.
Opal spent two nights sleeping in her car in a church parking lot before somebody at the church called our office.
I got her back into that house in forty-eight hours, with a court order.
I will never forget the look on her son’s face when the deputy handed it to him on the porch. He honestly believed that because he was family, the rules didn’t apply to him.
That case taught me the thing I carried with me for thirty-three years.
The law isn’t a weapon.
It’s a fence.
You build it before you need it. And you build it the right way, so it holds when somebody leans on it.
I had built my fence on September 26th. At my own dining table. While my family congratulated themselves.
I got up. I went into Leif’s office and turned on the desk lamp. I opened the top drawer and took out the signed agreement.
The Christmas envelope was still lying there underneath it. I left that right where it was.
Then I sat down at the computer and typed a one-page notice. Slowly. I checked every date twice. Then a third time.
I printed two copies. I addressed an envelope for certified mail.
At 10:30 that night, I sent Dedra a text.
“Can you be on my porch at 8:55 tomorrow morning? I need a witness, not a friend.”
She answered in under a minute.
“I can be both.”
Ethan Blake is a skilled Creative Content Specialist with a talent for crafting engaging and thought-provoking narratives. With a strong background in storytelling and digital content creation, Ethan brings a unique perspective to his role at TheArchivists, where he curates and produces captivating content for a global audience.
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