"You've been planning speeches in your head all evening."
I laughed.
She was right.
I'd spent the previous hour imagining what I would say if the HOA president came to my door. Every version involved explaining, with increasing enthusiasm, why taking somebody else's property without permission was not a neighborhood improvement.
But my wife knew something important about me.
I could become stubborn when I believed someone was deliberately manipulating facts.
That was useful in my work.
It wasn't always useful in personal disputes.
She reached across the table.
"Let the evidence do the talking."
I nodded.
Then she looked at the framed note from my mother on the windowsill.
Keep building toward home.
Her expression softened.
"This is our home."
I swallowed.
"I know."
She squeezed my hand.
"And we're not going to let someone make us feel like guests in it."
Over the next two weeks, I began asking questions.
Not by confronting people in the street.
Not by making accusations at the HOA office.
I simply spoke with neighbors I'd known since moving in.
The retired couple across from us had lost two packages during the winter. One contained replacement hearing-aid batteries and accessories for the husband. The other was a small birthday gift for their granddaughter.
The wife had contacted the delivery companies, but both packages had been marked as delivered.
She told me the HOA president suggested joining the Premium Parcel Protection Program.
"She said it was the only reliable way to keep our things safe."
I looked toward her.
"Did you join?"
She nodded.
"For a while."
"What happened?"
She sighed.
"The packages stopped disappearing from the porch."
I waited.
"But then we had trouble getting them back from the community office."
I frowned.
"What kind of trouble?"
"Wrong pickup hours. Missing receipts. Sometimes they said a package hadn't arrived even though the delivery notice showed it had been collected."
I took out my notebook.
"Do you have the records?"
She nodded.
"I kept everything."
Then she looked toward the street.
Her voice lowered.
"Are you having trouble too?"
I hesitated.
"Several packages have disappeared."
Her expression changed.
Then she asked, "Did the president tell you it was your fault?"
I looked up.
The question surprised me.
"She said I wasn't following recommended procedures."
The older woman gave a tired laugh.
"That's what she tells everybody."
For several seconds, we sat quietly.
Then she said something that stayed with me.
"I started paying because I was afraid my husband's medical supplies would go missing again."
I looked toward the small table beside her chair.
There was a photograph of her husband wearing a graduation cap beside their granddaughter.
She followed my gaze.