A few weeks later, my lawn mower disappeared from the garage.
I searched everywhere.
Then, a week later, it appeared again.
Sitting exactly where it had been before.
Except the gas tank was empty.
The blade was dull.
And there was no explanation.
No apology.
No conversation.
Nothing.
Again, I stayed quiet.
“She has three kids,” I told myself.
“She’s busy.”
“Maybe she forgot.”
I kept making excuses for someone who wasn’t making any effort to respect me.
And Monica wasn’t just doing this to me.
Frank, who lived across the street, once mentioned that Monica had borrowed his ladder.
Borrowed.
That was the word everyone used.
But somehow, her version of borrowing always seemed to involve keeping things longer than expected.
“I got it back eventually,” Frank said when I asked about it.
“How long?”
He sighed.
“Three months.”
At the time, I laughed.
That was just Monica.
