Chapter 13 - The Magnolia Exception
Cynthia's magnolia had been planted for her daughter, she'd once told me at a block party. I remembered because she'd described the child carrying a plastic watering can almost as tall as she was.
Now Cynthia stood with the courtesy notice trembling between her fingers.
“This is ridiculous,” she said when she saw me. “It's a healthy tree.”
“I believe you.”
“The branches are high enough. Nobody has complained.”
I pointed to the seed pods scattered across the sidewalk. “Somebody noticed them. That's why the inventory happened.”
She looked at me sharply. “Did you report my house?”
“No. I didn't even know about it.”
Pilar had sent the same standard notice to twenty-three homes. It required each owner to schedule an inspection and propose reasonable correction if vegetation interfered with shared access. It was not an order to cut anything down. But the orange tape was enough to bring back what Cynthia had said in my yard.
She folded the page into quarters. “This tree was my daughter's sixth-birthday present.”
“Then you understand why I asked for someone qualified to look at mine.”
Cynthia stared at the magnolia. “That's different.”
“How?”
“It's not dropping fruit.”
“It's dropping something. Maybe the solution is simple trimming and cleanup. That's all I asked for.”
She didn't answer. Inside her house, a dog barked once.
I left rather than making her defend herself on the sidewalk. I wanted her to feel the humiliation she'd given me. But as I walked away, I discovered that hearing her explain her tree made me feel less satisfied than I'd expected.
That afternoon Ben asked if I'd be willing to serve on a homeowner advisory group to revise the tree policy. “We need somebody who won't pretend every tree is the same,” he said.
“Then why are you asking me? I've spent a month pretending only mine matters.”
May you like
He gave me a tired smile. “Maybe you've learned something.”
I said I'd think about it. Dana's next inspection was Tuesday. Nothing about Cynthia's magnolia had repaired the crack in Danny's tree, and nothing about a fair new rule would restore the branch Ellie had been measuring since she could stand.
