The thing I spent all of Wednesday building in my closed garage was a sign. Not an angry piece of cardboard, but a beautiful four-foot board, hand-lettered the way my mother used to letter church notices. Before dawn on Thursday, I walked along every severed stem with my phone, photographing the damage Brenda had caused. Then I quietly knocked on two neighbors’ doors, because a street remembers when one of its own has been wronged.

The sign read: “THIS SPOT HONORS THE GARDEN OF A WOMAN WHO DIED, CUT DOWN AT MIDNIGHT BY THE OWNER OF THIS HOUSE.” Beneath it, I placed a photograph of my mother kneeling among those same flowers and a single surviving iris. At 7:15, Brenda saw it. One minute later, my phone rang. “You did all this over some stupid flowers?” she screamed. I took a sip of coffee. “No,” I said. “I did this so everyone knows exactly who you are.” Then Brenda threatened to sue me—and I told her what I had seen that night.