My name is Marcus Webb.

I was thirty-nine when I moved back into my parents' house on Cedarfield Lane.

They had lived there for thirty-two years.

My father had built the mailbox post himself.

My mother had planted the hydrangeas.

My wife, Catherine, used to say the kitchen had the best morning light in the entire neighborhood.

She was right.

After Catherine died, I spent a year living in a downtown apartment.

I told people it was practical.

It wasn't.

I simply wasn't ready to return to a house filled with memories.

Then my father died.

After the estate was settled, I drove back to Cedarfield, unlocked the front door, and stood in the entryway.

I smelled sawdust.

Old books.

Lemon oil.

And the faint trace of my father's workshop.

The house remembered me.

That was enough.

Cedarfield Estates had always had an HOA.

Under the old board, it had been irritating but manageable.

Then Melissa Carter became president.

She had been president for six years.

She treated the position like an elected office, a moral calling, and a personal throne.

She carried a camera everywhere.

She photographed lawns.

Mailboxes.

Porches.

Driveways.

Anything she believed could become a violation.

And three weeks after I moved home, she knocked on my door.

"Mr. Webb. Welcome back."

"Thank you."

She looked at my lawn.

"Your grass exceeds the permitted height."

"I'll mow it Saturday."

She marked something on her clipboard.

"You have fourteen days before a formal citation is issued."

"I said I'll mow it Saturday."

"Excellent."

She looked disappointed that I hadn't argued.

I mowed it Saturday.

Two weeks later, she came back about my mailbox.

Then came a letter about the shade of my front door.

Then one about a porch railing that wasn't peeling.

Then another about landscaping equipment that was supposedly visible from the street, even though my garage was closed.

Every time, I responded in writing.

Photographs.

Dates.

Governing-document references.