I was up at five-thirty on a Saturday because my dog needed to pee. That's the only reason I saw any of it. Jasper's a beagle mix with a bladder the size of a thimble, so there I was on the porch in Mel's old flannel shirt, barefoot, coffee in my hand, when Duane Gunderson's silver pickup rolled down the dead-end road and stopped at the gate across from my place.
The Gundersons own the cabin on the corner lot, the one behind the high chain-link fence with the metal gate you can't see through. Duane got out, jangled his key ring, and fastened a padlock on the outside of the gate. Then he drove off, and the dust hung in the air over the gravel road like a dirty curtain.
I remember thinking that was odd. Usually when they came up for the weekend, the gate stayed open so nobody had to fiddle with the key. But I had a dog to feed and a coffee pot to refill, so I went back inside.
Eleven years I've lived across from the Gundersons. Eleven years since Mel passed and I sold the house in town and bought this place. The lake's maybe half a mile through the woods, and on a still morning you can hear the boats starting up, one after another, like somebody's waking the whole shoreline. The smell of pine needles and lake water hangs over everything, especially after it rains.
Lori Gunderson waves when she's out in the yard. Duane doesn't. He's the kind of man who revs his truck engine just to hear it, who lets his radio blare while he's tinkering with his boat trailer. He's got a voice that carries. You can hear him tell Lori to get him a beer from two hundred yards away, and she goes and gets it. That's just how they are.
Lori doesn't talk much. She's got this old foot-pedal sewing machine on the porch, the kind with a wooden wheel and iron legs. She sits there in the afternoons, working the treadle, and the needle goes up and down with a sound like a heartbeat. I've always liked that sound when I'm out hanging laundry on the line.
I wasn't about to get mixed up in their business. Mel always said I minded other people's problems more than my own, and he was right about that. But it's hard to look away when something's happening across the road and you've got a front porch seat.
Saturday afternoon I was out back, yanking weeds from the flower beds, when I heard metal scraping. Not loud, but insistent. I walked around the side of the house and saw Lori at the gate. She was bent over with a wrench in her hand, working on the bolts that held the hinges. The gate's a big heavy thing, and she'd propped it up on a cinderblock. I thought maybe the hinges had rusted and she was fixing them. Duane's not much for house maintenance unless it's his truck or his boat.
She worked on those bolts for a long time. Her boots were planted wide, and she'd put her whole weight into the wrench, her shoulders bunched up under her t-shirt. Then she muscled the gate off its hinges and laid it down flat on the grass. Just like that. She stood there a second, wiping her hands on her jeans, then went back inside.
I went back to my weeding. An hour later, I looked up and saw her carrying armloads of clothes out to the fence. Men's shirts, mostly. Plaid work shirts, a few dress shirts still on plastic hangers. She'd strung a length of blue nylon rope between the fence posts, all the way down the side of the yard, and she was hanging the shirts on it, spaced out like laundry on a line.
She brought out more. Jackets. A pair of chest waders that looked like they cost a fortune. A tackle box with stickers all over it. A stack of baseball caps—John Deere, Budweiser, one from a bait shop in Traverse City. She stood two fishing rods against the fence posts, straight up like little flagpoles.
She went back and forth for what must have been three hours. Every time I looked out the window, there was something new on that fence.
That evening, Jasper and I walked down to the mailbox and I got a better look. The fence looked like a yard sale had exploded on it. There was a socket wrench set laid out on the ground, each socket in its little molded slot like a chocolate box. There was a car seat cushion with a massager built into it, plugged into nothing but the air. I noticed the pine sap smell was stronger than usual, thick and sweet, and the low sun made the shirts look like flags from some country nobody'd ever heard of.
At one point I saw a yellow plastic folder lying on the grass near the gate. I didn't think much of it. Looked like someone's tax paperwork or something.
That night I made myself a ham sandwich and watched the local news. The weather said rain moving in Sunday evening. I thought about those shirts on the rope and wondered if Lori had checked the forecast.
Sunday morning, I was back on the porch with my coffee. It was a little after noon when Duane's truck came back up the road. This time there was another man with him—a younger guy in a polo shirt, carrying a clipboard. They parked by the gate and both got out.
Duane walked up to the gate and stopped. He reached for the padlock and then froze. His hand went up to the back of his neck, rubbing it like he'd been bitten by a horsefly. Then he turned and looked at the fence.
"Lori!" he yelled. "Lori, what the hell is this?"
The young guy stood off to the side, looking at the fence, then at Duane, then down at the clipboard. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like a kid waiting for a bus that was late.
Duane grabbed the gate and shook it. It didn't budge. There was a fresh lock on the inside, I could see the shine of new metal through the chain-link.
"Lori, open the goddamn gate!"
I heard her voice then, but I couldn't make out the words. She was somewhere in the yard, maybe on the porch. It wasn't shouting. It was steady, the way you'd talk to a horse that's spooked.
Then I saw the yellow folder slide under the gate. It came through the gap at the bottom, scraping along the gravel, and stopped right at Duane's boots. He looked down at it, then bent over and picked it up. He opened it. He read whatever was inside. His shoulders dropped.
The young guy leaned over to see the folder. He read it too, and then he straightened up and took a full step back. I couldn't hear everything, but I caught one line from him: "You told me this place was yours. Just yours." Then he raised one hand, palm out, and walked to his car. I noticed the plate on the back—Illinois. He got in, made a three-point turn, and drove off, dust flying up under the wheel wells.
Duane stood there with the folder in his hand. He didn't move for a long time. Then he started ripping the shirts off the rope, one by one, throwing them into the bed of his truck. He worked fast, his movements jerky, and every few seconds he'd look back at the gate like he expected it to swing open. It never did.
At one point Jasper barked at him from our porch. Duane looked over at me, and I just stood there with my coffee, my other hand on the porch railing. I didn't wave. I didn't go inside. I just watched him load his clothes.
It took him about forty minutes. He took down the waders, the fishing rods, the caps, the socket set. The fence was almost bare when he finished. He got in his truck and drove off around two o'clock, the tires kicking up gravel. The yellow folder was gone—he'd taken it with him.
Later that afternoon, I heard the sewing machine start up. The same steady rhythm, the needle going up and down. I put on my shoes and walked over to the fence with Jasper. I stood there a minute, not saying anything. The gate was still closed, and I could see the new padlock on the inside, half hidden behind the chain-link. Lori was on the porch, working the treadle, her head down. She didn't look up, but after a second she raised one hand, just a little, like she was waving me off or saying hello—I couldn't tell which.
I turned and walked home. Jasper peed on a dandelion by the mailbox. The rain didn't come until well after dark.
