All I wanted was a peaceful place where my daughter and I could finally feel settled. Instead, shortly after we moved in, I found myself dealing with a neighbor determined to make us regret coming.

The moving truck disappeared down the road a little after two in the afternoon. I remained in the driveway with a cardboard box resting against my hip, looking up at the small house that now belonged to me.

Paint peeled from the siding in delicate curls. The left side of the porch dipped slightly, as though the house were leaning closer to hear a secret. It was modest and worn, but it was ours.

My eight-year-old daughter, Olivia, had already thrown off her sneakers and was racing barefoot through the tall grass behind the house. She stretched her arms toward the lake as though welcoming it personally.

“Mom, there’s a frog,” she yelled. “A real one! I named him Kevin!”

“Kevin the frog stays outside,” I called back, laughing. “He’s a wild animal.”

I lowered the box onto the porch step and allowed myself to breathe.

My father had left me the lake house when he died six months earlier. For the first time in years as a single mother, I would no longer be sending rent money to someone else.\\

Parenting

Olivia and I had lived in a cramped one-bedroom apartment for so long that she considered having a hallway a luxury.

Now she had a yard, a frog named Kevin, and a bedroom window overlooking real trees.

Gravel shifted beneath my shoes as I returned to the car.

The driveway stretched narrowly along the side of the house, barely wide enough for my aging blue Chevrolet. It was the only parking space available. There was no garage, no extra lot, and nowhere else to leave the car.

I turned and noticed an older man in a faded cap resting his arms on the fence between our properties.

His face was weathered but friendly, and he carried himself with an easy calm.

“Hello, I’m Harold,” he said. “Your dad and I used to fish off that dock back there. He talked about you all the time. He mentioned you’d get the house.”

Parenting

“Samantha,” I replied, stepping over to shake his hand.

“And that barefoot tornado is Olivia.”

“She’s a keeper,” my new neighbor said, smiling.

He glanced toward the porch.

“That railing’s about ready to give up on life. I’ve got tools. You just say the word.”

“Retired contractor, ma’am. If I don’t fix things, I go stir-crazy.”

I laughed, and some of the tightness in my chest faded.