For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Thomas said quietly, “I’m going to have to report the damage.”
Linda’s eyes snapped back to him.
“To who?”
“The HOA. And probably my insurance company.”
Her expression changed again.
Until then, the broken window had been an argument.
Now it was becoming a consequence.
Linda stepped backward.
“You don’t have to make this into a big thing.”
Thomas looked at the phone in his hand.
“You already did.”
CHAPTER 3
By Saturday morning, the broken window had been covered from inside with a temporary panel.
Thomas hated looking at it.
The damaged glass was not only expensive. It was a visible reminder that something ordinary between neighbors had become something else.
His wife had died four years earlier, and the house had gradually become the place where he felt most settled. He had replaced the windows himself over the years, painted the porch, planted the small maple near the walkway.
He had never expected to defend his own front yard against a neighbor.
That morning, Thomas submitted the doorbell footage with his HOA incident report.
Linda received notice later that day.
She called him almost immediately.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Thomas stood in his kitchen, phone against his ear.
“I understand that.”
“I was angry.”
“I understand that too.”
There was a pause.
“You know I thought you were watching me.”
Thomas looked toward the covered window.
“I know.”
“I kept seeing that camera.”
“You could have asked me about it.”
“I thought you wouldn’t tell me the truth.”
Thomas closed his eyes for a moment.
That was the part that bothered him most.
Not the brick.
Not even the broken glass.
It was the certainty Linda had built around something she had never confirmed.
He said, “What truth?”
“I don’t know.”
Her voice sounded smaller now.
Thomas waited.
Finally, Linda admitted that she had noticed the camera months earlier. Whenever she saw its light come on, she imagined that someone inside the house was checking on her.
She had begun watching Thomas’s house in return.
Every glance became evidence.
Every movement became suspicious.
She had convinced herself that she was defending her privacy.