Fourteen years in Oakridge, of hosting summer barbecues, going to town council meetings and serving on local committees, had disappeared into a handful of angry phone calls.

I leaned back in the armchair in the dim seaside living room while my phone kept ringing on the table with furious messages from old neighbors.

At eight in the morning, I laid my cell phone face down on the nightstand and left the coastal apartment.

The thin mist off the water had lifted by the time I got to Margaret’s law office on Main Street.

She had two yellow legal pads on her mahogany conference table beside a brass desk clock that ticked once each second.