CHAPTER 1: THE FRICTION OF THE EDGE
The sharp, metallic snap of the starter cord against the plastic housing of the green push mower always vibrated straight through Arthur’s arthritic wrists before the engine finally caught. He spat a fleck of dry tobacco into the parched, yellowing turf at his boots and adjusted his grip on the black rubber handle. The afternoon sun beat down on his bare shoulders, drawing out a thin film of sweat that mixed with the fine, dry dust rising from the yard. He only had this last twelve-inch strip of rye grass left—the narrow lane running parallel to the weather-faded cedar fence that marked the eastern edge of his world. He pushed the machine forward, the rusted steel blades chewing through the stalks with a heavy, uneven drone.
Then a shadow cut through the glare.
“Shut it down, Arthur! Turn it off right now!”
The voice was thin, piercing, and entirely devoid of neighborly grace. Arthur didn’t drop his hands from the frame immediately. He let the mower idle for a three-second count, watching the hot pink fabric of Shannon’s polo shirt flash against the graying cedar slats. She was leaning so far over the top rail that the wood groaned under her weight, her arms extended like a highway barrier. Her blonde hair was pulled back tight, her large dark sunglasses propped up on her skull like a second set of sightless eyes. In her left hand, she clutched a sleek, black-cased smartphone, its lens aimed squarely at his chest.
Arthur squeezed the kill switch. The engine sputtered, gasped, and died with a heavy, metallic sigh that left the backyard suddenly exposed to the low, distant hum of the interstate.
“Afternoon, Shannon,” Arthur said. His voice was low, gravelly from a lifetime of breathing workshop dust, and deliberately slow. He didn’t step away from the mower. He kept his work shoes—caked with old clippings and stained with engine oil—planted right where they were.
“Don’t ‘afternoon’ me,” she snapped, her knuckles turning white where she gripped the top of the fence. “Look at your left wheel, Arthur. Look at it. It’s three inches over the property line. You’re tracking your weeds into my layout, and you’re doing it on purpose.”
Arthur looked down. The rubber wheel of his old Sears craftsman was resting in a shallow depression in the dirt, right where the grass gave way to the sparse clover. He knew every square inch of this dirt. He’d buried two dogs near the oak tree twenty years ago, long before the developer leveled the orchard to put up Shannon’s pristine colonial. He knew the fence was the boundary. It had been the boundary when her house was just a blueprint.
“The fence is the line, Shannon,” he said, keeping his tone level, transactional. “Been the line since ninety-eight.”
“The fence is a structural error,” she said, her voice dropping into a tight, bureaucratic register that signaled weeks of calculated malice. “The builder offset it to clear the utility box. My lot extends twenty-four inches past these panels. I told you last month I was filing the grievance, and you chose to ignore it. Now you’re actively encroaching on an active dispute.”
She didn’t blink behind the glare of the afternoon light. She was calculating, watching his face for a sign of anger, a raised voice, anything she could log into her database. Arthur merely shifted his weight, feeling the dry heat radiating from the cedar boards. He noticed a fresh, deep scrape on the bottom rail of the fence on her side—a clean, white gouge in the wood that hadn’t been there yesterday morning, right near the base where a heavy iron pry bar might have been jammed under the post to test its depth.
Before he could speak, the distinct, low-frequency rumble of a municipal engine drifted down the asphalt of the cul-de-sac. The blue-and-white cruiser turned into the driveway, its tires crunching heavily over the loose gravel.
