Camille nodded.
“That sounds more honest.”
Margaret swallowed.
“You didn’t have to invite me.”
“No.” Camille looked around the yard.
“I didn’t.”
Margaret gave a nervous half laugh.
Camille continued. “But neighborhoods don’t get better if people only talk to the people who already agree with them.”
Margaret looked down.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
“I don’t know you well enough yet to decide what forgiveness would even mean.”
That answer surprised Margaret.
Camille pointed toward the food.
“But you can eat.”
Margaret laughed softly.
It was the first thing that felt remotely normal between them.
For the next hour, Margaret mostly listened.
She learned that Sanjay had been a high school calculus teacher for thirty-two years.
She learned the Lopez family’s oldest daughter had just been accepted into nursing school.
She learned Camille’s sister lived in McKinney and that Camille had moved to Texas partly because years of federal work had made staying near family suddenly feel urgent.
Camille liked extremely spicy food.
She hated golf.
She had once spent eight months undercover inside a financial fraud investigation and still could not discuss most of it.
Margaret laughed when Camille described living in an apartment so small during one assignment that she could touch both walls from the center of the kitchen.
Then Margaret caught herself.
For the first time, she was learning about Camille without asking what she did to deserve being there.
That difference embarrassed her.
It also gave her somewhere to go next.
Near sunset, Lorraine joined them by the pool.
“I owe you an apology too.” Camille looked surprised.
“For what?”
Lorraine explained that Margaret had mentioned the new neighbor several times before the police call.
“I encouraged it.” She looked uncomfortable.
“I said people who keep to themselves usually have something to hide.”
Camille nodded slowly.
“Thank you for saying that.”
Lorraine frowned. “That’s all?”
Camille smiled.
“Were you expecting a sentencing hearing?”
Margaret laughed before she could stop herself.
Camille looked toward her.
It was not quite friendship.
Not yet.
But the sound no longer felt impossible.
Weeks passed.
The neighborhood returned to ordinary problems.
Someone left a trash bin out for two days.
A teenager practiced drums in a garage after nine.
An HOA email about mailbox paint triggered seventeen replies and one unnecessary argument about property values.
Margaret noticed everything.
The difference was what she did with the noticing.
One afternoon, she saw a young Black man walking toward Camille’s front door carrying a large box.
Her old instinct activated immediately.
Unknown person.
Package.
Looking toward windows.
Then Margaret stopped.
She watched him ring the bell.
Camille opened the door and hugged him.
Margaret went back to pruning roses.