Blaine read page three aloud, slowly, and his voice began to shrink. It was a land agreement from 1986, signed by Mr. Pruett and notarized, stating that the garden strip behind our house was a permanent agricultural easement, exempt from every present or future covenant on the street. He flipped to the next page and stopped breathing. “This cannot be valid,” he muttered.

I stepped closer and said quietly, “Page five is the one that should worry you.” Blaine’s hands trembled as he turned to it. It was a survey map, stamped by the county, with a red line drawn along our property edge. Along that line, plain as day, ran the new white fence he had built last spring, three feet inside our land. The bulldozer driver slowly climbed down from his seat.