My neighbor let her dog use my lawn as a toilet every morning for six months and never cleaned up once — I stayed polite until she made one comment I couldn’t forget, and by the next morning I’d taught her a lesson without raising my voice once.

Marguerite stopped near the sidewalk.

She stared at the hydrangeas.

“What do you do to them?” she asked.

I looked at her.

Eight months had passed since the incident.

She had been walking Winston around the block ever since.

No problems.

No mess.

No arguments.

Exactly what I had wanted.

“Drainage,” I said.

Then I paused.

“And patience.”

Another pause.

“And knowing when to stop waiting for things to fix themselves.”

She looked at me.

I looked back.

We both knew we weren’t only talking about flowers.

“I’ll try that,”