I tried. I really did.
I told Birdie we couldn’t put out peanuts anymore. I explained about the rules and the HOA and Mr. Dennison. She listened with her lip shaking. Then she asked me one question.
“Will Edgar think we don’t love him anymore?”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
Edgar kept coming. Every morning at seven-fifteen. He’d land on the railing and wait. He’d look in the window at Birdie. He’d make a soft clicking sound in his throat, like he was asking a question.
Birdie would stand at the glass with her hand pressed flat against it and cry.
After four days of that, I found her standing on a kitchen chair, reaching into the pantry for the jar of peanuts.
I didn’t stop her.
I know. I know. Rules are rules. But you try watching your six-year-old cry at a window every morning for a bird that thinks she abandoned him.
Two weeks later, the second letter came. This one wasn’t taped to the door. It came by certified mail, and I had to sign for it at the post office.
SECOND NOTICE OF CONTINUING VIOLATION. The Board has received photographic evidence that the violation of Article 7, Section 4(c) is ongoing. Pursuant to the Association’s fine schedule, a continuing fine of $50 per day has been assessed beginning September 22nd. Your current balance is $850.
There were three photographs stapled to the back. Grainy, taken from a distance. Birdie on the back porch in her pajamas, putting peanuts on the railing. Edgar beside her.
Somebody had stood on the walking path behind my fence and taken pictures of my daughter.
I sat down on the curb outside the post office and couldn’t breathe for a while.
The third letter came in October. It wasn’t from Harold Dennison. It was from a law firm in Boise. Pell & Associates, Attorneys for the Willow Bend Homeowners Association.
It said my account balance was now $2,850 in fines, plus $750 in attorney’s fees for the Association’s “collection efforts,” for a total of $3,600. It said that if the balance wasn’t paid within thirty days, the Board would “consider all remedies available under the Declaration and Idaho law,” including recording a lien against my property at 418 Larkspur Lane.
A lien. On my house. The house I’d bought with my husband’s life insurance money. The house with the cottonwood tree.
Over a crow and a jar of peanuts.
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