I hadn't planned to speak. I'd planned to sit in the back with Rook and vote and go home. But Mr. Huynh, who was sitting next to me with his notebook in the inside pocket of his cardigan, leaned over and said, "You should say something. Short. People need to hear it from you, not about you." So I stood up, and Rook stood up, and this time nobody gasped.
"I'm Bernie Kowal," I said. "Fourteen Sandpiper. Most of you know who I am by now, and most of you know who he is." I put my hand on Rook's head. "I don't have a speech. I just want to say two things. The first is that I'm not here because I'm angry at anyone. I was angry for a long time. I'm tired now, mostly. I'm here because forty-six thousand dollars of our money is gone, and I asked a question about it in April, and then I spent six months trying to keep my husband's dog from being taken away. Those two things are connected, and I'd like us to have a board that doesn't do that to the next person who asks a question."
I looked around the room. Kayla, holding Mabel. Wyatt beside her. The woman from Kingfisher who wanted the board to do something about the geese. Vince Ostrander, in the third row, looking at his shoes.
"The second thing is just thank you. To Mr. Huynh, who wrote it all down. To the Brecks. To Officer Ybarra, who isn't here, who did her job right when it would've been easier not to. And to everyone who changed their mind. I know that's not easy to do in front of people." I sat down. Rook lay back down on my feet with a groan, because his hips were bad that day and the clubhouse carpet was thin.
Then Candace stood up.
She was in the second row, alone, with an empty folding chair on either side of her. I hadn't seen her come in. She was wearing a gray sweater and no makeup, or very little, and she had a single index card in her hand that she didn't look at.
The room went very quiet.
"My attorney asked me not to come today," she said. Her voice was steady. Low. Not the voice she'd used at meetings. "He asked me very specifically not to say anything about the criminal case, so I won't. But I've lived here for twelve years and I ran this association for nine, and I don't think I should be removed from it without standing up in front of you. That seems like the least I owe."
She looked at the index card then, finally, and put it in her pocket.
"When I was seven years old, my neighbor's German shepherd came through a hole in a fence and took hold of my arm and wouldn't let go. It was thirty-one stitches and two surgeries. I've been afraid of big dogs my whole life. That's not an excuse. I'm only saying it because some of you have asked me why, and that's part of why. It's not most of it." She took a breath. "Three years ago my husband left. Some of you know that. What you don't know is that he left me with a house I couldn't afford and a mortgage rate that reset that winter and a credit card balance I didn't know existed. I was going to lose the house. And this neighborhood was the only thing I had that was mine. I'd built it. I'd built the value of every house on every street." She stopped. Her chin moved, very slightly. "I told myself I was borrowing. I told myself that when the market came back, I'd sell, and I'd put every dollar back, with interest, and nobody would ever have to know. I believed that for a long time. You'd be surprised how long you can believe something."