Sometimes, when I drive down from Los Angeles and the road curves just enough to reveal the first flash of blue-gray water through the trees, I think about how close my family came to losing something beautiful in broad daylight under the excuse of practicality.
I think about how easily ordinary people can lose sacred things because they are too polite to call greed by its name when it arrives wearing a wedding ring and carrying a folder.
Then I pull into the driveway.
I hear gravel under the tires.
I see my parents through the window—Mom in the kitchen, Dad by the sea-facing glass pretending not to watch for me—and I remember that some homes are built twice.
Once with money, lumber, signatures, and legal documents.
And once when somebody stands in the doorway of harm and says:
No farther.
man who thinks proximity gives him rights.”
