Later, Richard approached me as I was looking at the estimate.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
We stood beside the barrier, the damaged Mercedes still trapped between us.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
I waited.
“I shouldn’t have parked here. You asked me to stop, and I treated it like a joke.”
“You treated me like a joke.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
I had imagined hearing those words for six months.
Now that he’d finally said them, I didn’t know what to do.
Richard looked toward his car.
“Something like this happened to me before.”
I frowned.
“Another concrete wall?”
He almost smiled.
“No. A driveway.”
Years earlier, Richard explained, he’d shared a driveway entrance with a close friend who lived next door.
Richard had repeatedly blocked part of the entrance with his vehicles.
His friend asked him to stop.
Richard refused, insisting that the arrangement was harmless.
Their arguments grew until the friendship collapsed.
