My home.

I had only owned the place for three weeks, but I was already falling in love with the creaks in the floor and the hum of the neighborhood. The previous owner left behind an old wrought iron bench in the backyard, and I liked to sit there in the mornings with my coffee, watching the squirrels argue over acorns. It wasn’t fancy. But it was mine.

I turned off the engine and stepped out, a familiar buzz catching my attention before I even shut the door.

A lawnmower?

I squinted toward the side yard. That’s when I saw him—some teenage boy pushing a gas mower across my lawn with the focus of a brain surgeon. He had wireless earbuds in and was halfway through carving tidy lines through