Part 3 — What June Saw
Edith smoothed the old covenant with one gloved hand. “June came to my door in 2019,” she said. “She told me she had watched surveyors from her kitchen window, moving the boundary stakes along the back wall of Harold lot, three feet at a time. The survey company belonged to Grant.”
The clubhouse murmured. Grant took a half step back. “That is a misunderstanding,” he said.
“I pulled the county plat in March,” I said. “The recorded boundary and the stakes are three feet apart. If the garden is removed, that strip becomes a road for the new gate that Grant sold to the board as a safety upgrade. His company was quoted for the paving.”
A man in the second row stood up. He was the treasurer of the HOA board. “Grant, I signed the paving estimate,” he said. “You told us the land belonged to the association.”
Edith held up the original covenant. “It never did. Every planting that existed before 1990 is protected, and every lot line is recorded. The board has no authority to fine, lien, or remove them.”
Forty-one years of roses were planted on the truth, and the truth is recorded at the county.
The board voted on the spot. Every fine against my property was voided, the lien was released, and the $1,200 I had paid was refunded. Grant resigned as president before the meeting adjourned. The board referred his survey dealings to the state real estate commission for review.
Kimberly came up to me in the parking lot. She apologized for what she had told the neighbors, and she asked if she could bring me a cup of tea. I told her I would take her up on it.
The next Saturday, Edith came to my yard in her straw hat and white gloves. She brought a tiny trowel and a pot of yellow rose cuttings from her late husband garden.
The neighbors came, too, one after another, with gloves and wheelbarrows. We pruned and fed and mulched all sixty-two bushes before lunch.
In April, the home tour added a new stop at the end of the block, a house with a rose garden in every color you can name. People slowed their cars to look, the way they used to, and I stood at the fence in June favorite tie, smiling back.
