My hand felt stiff, but I managed to sign my name on the bottom line, committing fifteen hundred dollars of my savings to a fight I had never wanted.

Rachel picked up the check, turned it over, and slid it into a yellow folder.

She adjusted her reading glasses and looked at me with her usual calm.

“This retainer covers our initial filings, Joan, but we are going to need more than just your surveyor’s report to stop him,” Rachel said.

I adjusted my own glasses, pushing them up the bridge of my nose.

“What else could we possibly need when Carl’s orange flags are sitting right there on my grass?”