It’s the same damn car, parked halfway across our driveway again, headlights still on like it’s taunting us. Mrs. Edvardsen from across the street swears it’s “just for a second” every time.
But this is the fourth “second” this week, and now my dad’s late picking up my little sister from chess club. I’m standing in our front window watching him pace with his keys in hand, muttering things I probably shouldn’t repeat. She does this passive-aggressive thing where she waves and says, “Oh, just grabbing my mail!” but somehow ends up chatting on speakerphone in her car, engine running, fully blocking us in.
The thing is—there’s room. Her driveway’s empty. Her curb is clear.
She just chooses ours. Last week, my mom tried being nice. Left a handwritten note on her windshield with a smiley face.
That night, the note was taped to our front door with “LOL” written across it in Sharpie. So now my dad’s pacing like a caged dog. I tell him to just wait five minutes.
He says nothing—just walks out the front door in his socks. I follow him to the porch, heart pounding. He knocks once on her tinted window.
She ignores him. He knocks again—harder. That’s when she rolls it down two inches and says, without looking at him, “I’m on a very important call.”
And that’s when my dad says, dead calm: “Okay.
Call this number next.” Then he pulls out his phone and starts dialing the non-emergency police line. Mrs. Edvardsen’s face shifts fast.
Her sunglasses come down. “You wouldn’t.”
Dad doesn’t blink. “Want to find out?”
She mutters something I won’t repeat and slams her car in reverse, tires squealing.
She parks across her own driveway—where she should’ve been in the first place—then huffs into her house like we’re the problem. We all thought maybe that was the end of it. A line drawn.
But of course it wasn’t. The next morning, our garbage bin was tipped over. Trash blown halfway down the street.
Could’ve been the wind, sure—but the raccoons around here don’t open bags and arrange things in neat little trails. Plus, someone drew a frowny face on the lid with a Sharpie. Two days later, our mailbox was stuffed with soggy fast food wrappers.
Dad’s truck got a scratch on the passenger side. And the ultimate cherry? My little sister’s bike—locked to the porch rail—had its seat mysteriously missing.
Mom said we should just let it go. “We’ve lived here nine years,” she reminded Dad. “We don’t want a war.”
Dad rubbed his temples.
“She wants one. Whether we want it or not.”
The final straw came on a rainy Tuesday. Dad was driving me home from band practice.
My sister had a cold, and Mom had called ahead to ask Dad to pick up soup from the store. We were barely five minutes from home when I saw it—the car. Her car.
Parked across our driveway again. And this time, she wasn’t in it. Dad pulled up behind it, staring.
“She’s not even home,” I said, though I wasn’t sure. Lights were off in her house. Porch dark.
No movement. “I’m done,” Dad muttered, pulling over to the curb. He didn’t call the police this time.
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