The buyout framework was announced at the end of the meeting, by Alice Moreno, with the county planning representative and Sheriff Hollis present, so that no family would have to rely on a single person's summary afterwards. Alice read it slowly, and a printed copy was handed to every household before anyone left the hall.
The framework had three parts. First, every family that had bought a villa in the basin would be bought out at purchase price, with the cost borne by Harrington Peak Development and Silver Pine Ridge Estates under the court's supervision, and with the details to be confirmed in the settlement that followed the preliminary ruling. Second, moving costs would be covered, and a rent bridge would be provided for the period between leaving the basin and moving into a permanent home, so that no family would have to pay twice for housing while the process was completed. Third, families would choose their own relocation path from the options available: a house on the ridge, above the high-water mark, where land was available and where the water authority's boundary did not reach, or a home elsewhere in the county, with the same buyout terms applying either way. No family would be assigned a house they had not chosen.
The choices that followed were not made in a single night, and Alice did not ask anyone to decide on the spot. She asked each household to indicate a preference within two weeks, so that the ridge properties could be surveyed and the moving arrangements could be planned in order. Over the following days, the preferences came in, household by household, in writing.
Priya and Daniel Okafor chose a ridge house above the high-water mark, so that Maya could stay in her school and so that the family could remain near the water without living in its bed. They wrote that they had drained their savings for the down payment, and that they wanted, above all, a home they did not have to doubt. Ruth and Harold Bennett chose a smaller ridge house, close to medical care, because Harold's heart condition made a long move and a long period of uncertainty the worst option for them. The Nguyen family, first-time buyers, chose a ridge house as well, after asking careful questions about the title and the boundary, and receiving written answers that cited the high-water mark. Sam Ortiz chose a home elsewhere in the county, nearer to his work and to his son's school, because he wanted a clean break from the Cove and from the months of letters and meetings.
No choice was celebrated in the hall, because none of them was a happy ending. Each was a practical path out of a basin that could not be kept as a neighbourhood, and each family made it with the knowledge that the reservoir would return on schedule, operated by the water authority, whether the houses were there or not. Tom, reading the preference sheets with Alice a week later, noted only that every family had chosen, that no family had been left without an option, and that the framework had done what it was meant to do: give people a way forward that did not depend on pretending the lake was gone.
The meeting ended without a speech. The chairs were stacked, the printed frameworks were folded into folders, and the families left the hall in small groups, talking quietly about surveyors, schools, and moving dates. The basin, for the first time since the villas were built, had a timetable that belonged to its residents as much as to its owner.
In the second week, Alice's office began surveying the ridge properties, checking each one against the high-water mark so that no family would be moved from one disputed boundary to another. The surveyor's reports came back in plain language, with the boundary marked and the deed references attached, and Alice sent copies to every household that had chosen a ridge house. The Nguyen family, after reading their report, asked one further question about drainage on the ridge plot, and received a written answer from the surveyor within three days. Sam Ortiz, who had chosen a home elsewhere, received a list of available properties in the county, with prices and school districts noted, and no pressure to choose the first one.
Dean Walsh, still posted at the Cove gate, watched the first surveyors arrive on the ridge. He did not comment on the choices the families had made. He checked the surveyors through the gate, logged their times in his notebook, and thought, with a tired satisfaction, that this was the first work at the Cove in months that did not require him to keep anyone out on the basis of a paper he had not seen.