Day twenty, Gordon showed up at my door.
No lawyer. No entourage. Just him, looking exhausted, like he’d been losing sleep, like he understood that the situation had spiraled beyond what his developer confidence could manage.
“Eli. Please. Let’s figure this out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out. You damaged my property. The agreement allows revocation. I’m revoking it.”
“I’ll pay for new trees. We’ll replant. We’ll apologize publicly.”
“My father planted those trees when I was eight years old. You can’t replant forty years. You can’t replant memory.”
“What do you want? Money? We can compensate you—”
“I want you to understand that my land isn’t yours to manage. That you don’t get to make decisions about my property because it affects your view.”
“I understand that now—”
“You understand it because you’re about to lose your road. Not because you actually respect boundaries.”
