Walter Briggs had lived at 14 Clover Lane for thirty-one years. He had moved in the summer after he retired from the post office, where he had sorted letters for four decades without ever losing a single one. He was proud of that. He was also proud of his lawn—a thick, even carpet of Kentucky bluegrass that he had grown from bare dirt, fed with carefully measured fertilizer, and watered every morning before six. Neighbours had stopped him on walks to compliment it. A boy had once asked if it was artificial.
Walter lived alone now. His wife, Dorothy, had passed four years ago, and their children had long since moved to other cities. But the house never felt empty to Walter, because there was always something to tend to. The garden beds needed weeding. The hedges needed trimming. The gutters needed cleaning. And the lawn always needed something. It was work, and Walter understood work. It gave his days a shape that mattered to him.