Our neighbors had apparently turned our backyard into their personal vacation destination whenever we left town.
They hadn’t asked.
They hadn’t apologized.
They hadn’t even considered whether we might object.
They simply assumed they could use it.
I wanted to march next door with the footage and confront Jim immediately.
Tom stopped me.
“If we confront them now, they’ll apologize and pretend it never happened.”
He was right.
A confrontation would give them an opportunity to deny what we already knew.
We needed to understand just how far this had gone.
So we waited.
The next weekend, we repeated the routine.
We packed the car.
We carried bags outside.
We made sure Jim could see us.
He was standing outside when we pulled away.
I smiled and waved.
He waved back.
Then Tom and I drove around the block.
We parked several streets away and walked home through the back entrance.
