Page 107 of Summer Tease
“Hush,” she says, swatting my arm.
We go to the room where they keep all the cards and board games, and I pull out a checkerboard. Once it’s all set up, I gird my loins and broach the subject of the survey.
“We got the results back from the property survey.”
“Hm,” she says, lowering her glasses on her nose so she can properly see the black and red pieces. “Doesn’t matter much now, does it? I assume Mr.Walletwill back out thanks to the city council’s meddling.”
“I assume so, but it’s still good to know for the sake of future buyers.”
She doesn’t respond to this, moving one of her pieces one space.
“Who put the fence in?” I ask.
Her gaze flits up to me, lingers for a half second, then dips back to the board. “I did.”
Dang it. Part of me had hoped the fence location was a mistake by the Palmers. Or even the home builders.
I choose my checker piece and my next question carefully. “And what did the Palmers say?”
She scoffs. “What did theysay? They didn’t want it. Rick refused to pony up the dough. He was always a miser,” she mumbles as she moves her next piece.
“So, he didn’t want a fence?”
“Oh, he did. He just didn’t want to pay for it. He knew how muchIwanted it, so he acted like he didn’t care whether or not it was built, and he let us pay for the whole thing.” She laughs softly as she takes two of my pieces like she’s enjoying some secret joke.
I watch her straighten pawns she won from me. “Grams…please tell me you didn’t do it on purpose.”
Her eyes flit to mine. “Do what on purpose?” But she knows. I know she knows.
“The fence is almost a foot and a half onto the Palmers’ property.”
“And it serves them right,” she says.
I don’t respond. I have no cluehowto respond to that. She did it intentionally. Sheknew. Knew this whole time that the property line doesn’t run along the fence.
“What did Rick say when the fence was in?”
She shrugs. “Nothing.”
“What about the dock?”
“He said it was on their property. I said I was sure it was on ours. I’m certain it was meant to be on ours. What sort of idiot builders would give one house two docks and the one next door none? It was a mistake.”
“Why didn’t he have a surveyor come out to settle it?” It’sobvious why Grams didn’t—she knew she’d be short one dock if that happened.
“I’ve asked myself the same thing all these years, Gigi,” she says. “I suspect he figured not doing it was some sort of apology to me for how he treated me.” Her mouth turns down in disgust. Apparently, she doesn’t agree. “He just made a fuss about the fence and the dock, and so did his son—accusing me but never doing anything about it. Rick likes a good fight just like I do.”
I’m still trying to process the fact that Grams did what she did—that she fed the fire so much fuel. I’ve always felt like we Sawyers were somewhat blameless in this whole thing. Mostly innocent victims.
Which is kind of crazy, now that I really think about it. This is Grams we’re talking about, after all. I just didn’t realize she’d go that far. It goes to show how hurt she must’ve been by Rick.
“You could get in serious trouble,” I say. “Legal trouble.”
“Maybe so,” she says, finally abandoning the checkers game and looking at me. “But Rick and his spawn more than had their revenge on us later. Believe me. Mark Palmer never wanted to run for city council until your dad expressed his interest. And who do you think made all our campaign signs disappear? Who chose the exact piece of property your father most cared about to build their precious retirement center on? And went behind our backs to sway the city council into approving it?”
She’s right, of course. Except that now I’m wondering what the rest of the story is on all ofthattoo. Maybe it’s more complicated than I’ve allowed it to be. I love my family, but I’m under no illusion that any of us is perfect.
But what might’ve happened if Grams had just let things go? Maybe the angst and frustration would’ve fizzled instead of simmering and then boiling over with the whole community pool issue. Maybe my family would still be here. Maybe Iwouldn’t have wasted so much time resenting this place—and fighting what I felt for Beau.
