“It makes perfect sense,” the man says. “You people just decided you could do whatever you wanted, without the guarantee of the law. I have the guarantee of the law.”

“I have a deed,” I say, the pressure in my head increasing. I’m not smart enough to be scared in this moment as he smiles smugly at me, his gaze flicking to the police officers.

This isn’t a ten-dollar bill.

It’s my mother’s garden.

Rage, pure rage, pulls my shoulders back and forces me to take a step closer and look down at this man. “Show me the proof of what you said.”

“I don’t have to show you anything,” he replies, amused.

I turn to the officers, not expecting help but having no other recourse. I cannot let this garden be taken. It’s the cornerstone of everything I have left.

“Please. This has been our community garden for years. There are trees. Do you know how long it takes a tree to grow? Please tell him he can’t do this.”

“Just show her the deed,” one of the cops says, though he doesn’t seem moved. “If you don’t, we’re gonna have a bunch of these people getting angry and I don’t feel like doing any paperwork before Labor Day weekend.”

The guy smiles and hands me a paper that was folded up in his back pocket. It’s a smudgy photocopy that supposedly shows proof of land purchase for five thousand dollars by 24 Gifford Place Real Estate Management, from . . .

“I can’t even read these names,” I say, the copy crinkling in my hand. “Who approved this?”

“The Brooklyn housing authority.”

My gaze fixes on the amount paid and any composure I had evaporates.

“Only five thousand? Do you think I’m fucking stupid? I could whip up something better in Photoshop.” My voice is rising but I can’t help it. He’s just here trying to take everything. Everything. No. “I could find out where you live, make a fake deed and say it’s mine, if that’s how this works. You wanna wake up and find me in your damn living room with my feet on the couch? This is bullshit.”

The man’s smug patience suddenly snaps, and he lunges toward my face until his nose is almost up against mine. “Look, bitch, I don’t want any problems from you. The lot is ours. If you wanna fuck with us, if you wanna try to hold things up, you’re gonna regret it. I will make you fucking regret it.”

“Bitch?” My face is hot, and I reflexively pull my braids back into a ponytail with the hair tie on my wrist in one smooth motion. “Who are you calling a bitch?”

“What are you gonna do, bitch? Hit me?” He lifts his face toward mine so his nasty breath blows in my face. His eyes are flashing with an anger disproportionate to the fact that he’s the one who started this shit. “Try it. Try it. I’ll have your ass locked up so fast your fucking head will spin.”

“Officer, sir, are you going to let this man threaten her like that, sir?” Len asks, distress in his voice. The officer looks in his direction and takes a step toward him.

“Officer!” I call out, and his attention shifts back to me. “Officer, please. At least let us get our things. This is some kind of misunderstanding, but until it’s resolved, let us please just get our equipment and whatever we have—”

“No,” the man says from behind them. “No entry to the property.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” the officer says, shrugging with a slight grin. “I have to adhere to the property owner’s wishes.”

The second officer turns to the crowd and starts shouting. “Everybody disperse! You, put that phone away! Nothing to see here! Nothing to see here!”

“But—”

Behind him, two of the men inside start pulling up plants. The others start piling up gloves and buckets and gardening tools, overturning the wooden benches Mr. Perkins and some of the other neighbors made at the beginning of the summer to replace the old rotten ones.

“Why?” I croak out. “Why are you doing this?”

“Ma’am, are we going to have a problem?” The second officer rests his hand on his holster and my stomach turns.

Yes! I want to scream. I want to scream until my throat is raw and bleeding. Instead, I stand there silent and shivering even though it’s so hot that my shirt is soaked through with sweat. I’ve failed my mother again. I imagine her face when we toured the retirement home, how she’d looked at me and said, “You know you’re going to have to take over the garden for me if I come here, right? You better watch some YouTube videos so you don’t kill my plants.”

“Come on, Sydney.”

The voice seems far away, but someone takes my arm and pulls me back. The grip is strong and reminds me of my mother, trying to keep me from danger.

“But Mommy’s—”

“Sydney, let’s go!” Ms. Candace squeezes my arm harder and pulls me away, and Len comes up from behind; I realize he’s covering my flank, and that’s enough to get me moving.

I look back one more time. The officers and the man who stole my mother’s garden are laughing. They’re laughing and I can’t do a damn thing about it.

I reflexively take out my phone, pull up my log, and dial the last person I’d called: Mommy. I just need to hear her voice, to apologize.

The phone stops ringing and I wait for her voicemail to pick up, but there’s only silence. Then . . . an exhale.

The dread in my body constricts to a sharp pain in my chest.

“Hello?” I whisper.

No response, but someone is there—I know with the surety of a child who refuses to let their feet hang off the edge of the bed.

“Hello?” Tears well in my eyes.

They hang up on me.

Ms. Candace rubs my back when I grasp the rim of a trash can in front of Etta Mason’s house and throw up.

“Etta will understand,” she says over and over again. “Anyone would understand.”

Gifford Place OurHood post by Candace Tompkins:

I think we should all discuss the loss of the community garden. There’s no way that man is the rightful owner. We need to know what happened and how.

Asia Martin: Who has the money to prove him otherwise?

Jenn Lithwick: Oh no! I heard what happened! How awful. Is Sydney okay?

Jen Peterson: Can someone really lie about that? I mean, the police were with him? They would know if his claim was real, right? Maybe I’m being naive but the alternative is . . .

Asia Martin: . . . business as usual, Jen. That’s all it is.

Jen Peterson: I’m sorry, Asia. I just can’t believe something like this could happen in Brooklyn.

Jenn Lithwick: Honey . . .

Chapter 15

Theo

AFTER THE RIESLING INCIDENT, I’M STAYING WELL AWAY FROM booze, which is a pretty abrupt change of pace for my body. I’d wanted a beer pretty badly after the weird spat with Sydney outside the corner store, and even more after going to see a room for rent a few train stops away. As expected, it was someone’s curtained-off living room, but it will be fine as a temporary base while I figure out what the next step will be.

Instead of cracking open a cold one, I go to the gym, needing to work out the feelings bobbing around recklessly now that I’m not drowning them with booze or distracting myself with Sydney.

Some people get to a zen place while working out, but my thoughts race as I swing my arms on the elliptical. Life had been stalled for months, it seemed, but things have kicked back into gear with a vengeance—my world is entirely different than it was a week ago. I made a friend, found a purpose—however temporary—then lost my girlfriend, my new friend, and my purpose. Oh, and also my house.

Now I’ve made the dubious decision to room with a seventy-year-old Polish ex-con who’s way too interested in my cooking skills and wanted to know if I could get the viruses off his computer.

William, the weird guy from the real estate place, suddenly steps in front of the elliptical. He doesn’t say anything, just looks up at me expectantly like we were already in midconversation and he’d just made a dirty joke.

“I’ll be done in five minutes,” I say.

“It’s cool. I’m more of a weight room guy.” He purses his lips, then frowns. “You never called me.”

“Called?”

“About the job offer. It’s not like they take on just anyone at BVT, and I thought you had what it takes. You look like . . .” He considers me with a kind of detached amusement, like I’m a ukulele or something. “. . . Like a guy who doesn’t have scruples, when it comes to making money.”

I don’t let my rhythm show it, but his words jar me. I slow a bit, unsure of what turn this situation is about to take.

“What makes you say that?”

He shrugs. “I’m not judging you. We could use guys like that because things are starting to get intense. Did you hear about the community garden on Gifford?”

The question is gleeful and a little gossipy.

My stomach drops as an image of Sydney on her hands and knees, miserably tending her plot, pops into my head.

“Hear what?”

“Some developer ganked it,” he says. “Slid right in with a new deed and was like, ‘Yeah, this is my shit now. In your face, bitch!’”

I consider just knocking my fist right into his mouth to shut him up.