I had known him for years. He’d been friends with my late husband before moving out of state.
“I thought you deserved to hear this from me,” he said. “I saw the video.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“And?”
“Her lease is up next month. I won’t be renewing it.”
I blinked.
“Because of the video?”
“No. The video made me take a closer look at everything.”
“Something else was wrong?”
He nodded.
“She’s behind on several utility payments. I inspected the house, too. There’s damage she never reported — and a few repairs she made without permission.”
I glanced toward Monica’s home.
For once, she wasn’t watching me through the window.
Apparently, being caught using my electricity hadn’t been her only problem.
A month later, I sat on my porch drinking iced tea while Monica loaded the final boxes into a moving truck.
She never looked toward me.
My garden gnome sat beside the mailbox again.
Exactly where he belonged.
For a moment, I could almost hear my husband’s voice.
***Kindness isn’t the same as silence, El.***
Maybe that was the lesson I should have learned years earlier.
Keeping the peace didn’t mean allowing people to take whatever they wanted.
And being kind didn’t mean pretending disrespect wasn’t happening.
This time, I finally understood the difference.
