“What is that?” she asked.
I opened the side door and went around through the driveway.
The smell of fresh pine hit me before I reached the front yard.
Jason was on our porch with a pry bar.
Two ramp sections were already lying in the grass, and three more had been stacked against our front door.
Metal brackets hung crooked from the porch edge.
Screws were scattered across the walkway.
“Stop,” I said.
Jason turned slowly.
He did not look surprised.
That told me he had been listening for us.
“The ramp crosses my side,” he said.
“It does not.”
“It does.”
Emma came around the side of the house behind me, moving carefully along the narrow concrete strip beside the driveway.
When she reached the front, she set her brakes.
She looked at the missing ramp, then at the boards blocking the door.
“Mom,” she said, “I can’t get inside.”
Jason heard her.
He kept one hand on the pry bar.
“Move if you don’t like it,” he said.
The sentence was aimed at me, but the cost landed on Emma.
For one second, my anger became physical.
