Pine Crest Ridge held a special election in April. The old board was swept out. Wendy Novak ran for president on a platform of transparency, legal compliance, and not committing federal crimes. She won with seventy-one percent of the vote. First order of business, an independent audit of HOA finances for the past six years. Second order, a twenty-five percent reduction in quarterly dues.
My townhome was restored. I repainted the scuff marks where Brenda’s locksmith had gouged the door frame, replaced the cheap pin latch on the sliding door with a proper security bar, and cleaned the carpets that a hundred strangers had walked on. The cast-iron skillet went back on its hook. The navy sheets went back on the bed. The unit photo went back on the mantel. Twelve soldiers. One Stryker. Mosul, 2019. I straightened the frame and stood back. It hung level.
I used a portion of the settlement to establish the Winslow-Calloway Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit providing free legal consultation to deployed service members facing HOA disputes, property seizures, or unlawful liens during active duty. Named after me and the man who watched my house when nobody else would. The first case came in June. A Navy petty officer in Virginia Beach whose HOA had filed foreclosure proceedings on his home while he was on a submarine deployment in the Pacific. His wife called from their kitchen, their two kids in the background, and said she did not know what to do. I knew exactly what to do. We connected her with an SCRA attorney within forty-eight hours. The foreclosure was voided within two weeks.
Nate and I sat on my porch on an evening in late May. The sun was going down behind Pikes Peak. The mountains were purple and gold and the color of bruises that are almost healed. The air smelled like pine and the neighbor’s grill and the end of a very long year. Nate had his Earl Grey. I had mine. He had gotten me into the habit somewhere around month three of the lawsuit. Not beer. Tea. The kind of ritual that does not need to be loud to mean something.