She barely looked embarrassed.
“Don’t be selfish, Claire. I’m going to sell it. I need the money.”
“My children eat those. Their father grew them.”
Monica rolled her eyes.
“Well, he’s not here now, is he? They’ll only rot.”
I could barely stop myself from yelling.
“These aren’t your trees, and this isn’t your property. Don’t you dare come onto my land again,” I said.
I ordered her off my property, and she left muttering that grief had made me “hysterical.”
The next morning, Ben woke me before sunrise.
“Mom… come outside. I heard a scary noise, and it woke me up.”
I kissed him on the forehead and went downstairs.
But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw there.
Every tree was bare. Broken twigs covered the grass, and Daniel’s wooden ladder lay beside the fence.
Something inside me cracked.
I had no doubt who had done it. The lights in Monica’s windows were on despite the early hour.
So she clearly wasn’t going to respond to politeness.
And I wasn’t about to let anyone disrespect my husband’s memory — even if some people thought what I prepared was too much.
Hours later, I did something in Monica’s front yard.
When she stepped outside and saw it, she screamed so loudly that the entire neighborhood came running to see what had happened….To be continued in C0mments
