Three weeks later the phone rang. I was sitting on the sofa in our family room looking through The New Yorker. The caller ID announced a name that I didn’t recognize. I was going to ignore it but decided to answer it. It was Officer Jackson. He had sent the paperwork to the juvenile court and I should be hearing from them. He left his phone number in case I wanted to talk to him.

As days went by I was having second thoughts if I did the right thing. Things happen. Kids make mistakes. They weren’t on drugs or alcohol, but they had damaged my property and they deserved to learn a lesson from the deed.

I wondered if my wife had mentioned this to the ladies in her garden club. The garden club usually met once a month on the first Wednesday in the evening. When my wife returned from the January meeting she looked upset.

“What’s up?” I asked. Perhaps Julia, the trouble maker had said something to upset her.

“You know it’s so strange,” she said.

“What is?”

“That car. I saw it when I went for the meeting and it’s still there.”

“So?”

“I mean, It’s parked on our side of the curb right in front of our house and there’s a lady in there and she was looking at our lawn.”

“Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Maybe she is the mother of the kid who drove over our lawn.”

I looked out the window and didn’t see any car.

“There’s no one there.”

“I don’t know. I saw it. If she comes back I’m going to walk over and ask her what she’s up to.”

“OK.”

I asked her if she mentioned our lawn incident to the ladies.

“Yes.”

“And?”

They said “Let them do some community work.”