The Closing Packet Sent Me to a Surveyor Before Breakfast

I opened the envelope with my bait knife, using the dull side.

The document had been recorded in 1956. The waterfront association had formed in 1994. Both dates appeared in my closing papers, which meant I did not have to trust my memory.

I read the important passage aloud.

The owner of my shed parcel could pass on foot, with handcarts and baskets, over the marked strip of lawn and the stone tide stairs. The right included carrying seaweed and other marine crops between the shore and the shed.

It passed with the parcel. It was not a favor to one owner.

“Well,” I said to the empty loft.

Below the words sat a sketch with distances from two iron pins and a drilled cross in ledge.

I called the lawyer who had handled my purchase. She no longer took court cases, but she checked her title file and sent me to Nora Bell, a local lawyer who handled land disputes.

Nora answered late Friday afternoon.

“Send the whole packet,” she said. “And photographs. Don't pull the chain off yourself.”

“I wasn't planning to.”

“Good. I want the locked stairs to stay her decision.”

I sent the fine, the deed, the sketch, and my pictures. Then I called Felix Beaulieu, whose name appeared on an old survey tucked behind the shed's tax map.

“I didn't do that survey,” he said. “My father did.”

“Do you still work along the shore?”

“Usually with mud in my socks.”

Felix was fifty-seven, a French American coastal surveyor with a warm voice and no wish to retire. He sounded pleased when I mentioned buried pins.

“People can talk all afternoon,” he said. “An iron marker tends to keep its story short.”

He could come Saturday morning. His estimate was $1,250 for field work and a signed plan, unless the records led somewhere hard.

I wrote that amount below Della's fine.

Then I moved money out of the account meant for a new drying fan. The old fan rattled, but it worked. A clear route to the water had to come first. I kept the transfer slip with Felix's estimate.

At six, Nora called back.

“This is strong evidence of a right of access,” she said. “We still need to place the route on the ground. I've asked Della and the association board to restore access tonight.”

“Will they?”

“We will have their answer in writing.”

I ate noodles standing at my sink. Then I checked the drying racks. The alaria gave its soft paper crackle. I packed it into clean bins, weighed each batch, and wrote the lot numbers on the lids.

Work that could still be done deserved doing.

At seven, Mara Holt knocked on my door.

She dug clams when the flats were open and cleaned cottages when they were not. I had bought her old handcart for $80 when I arrived.

“Heard about your fine,” she said.

“Everybody heard about my fine.”

She held up a paper bag with two biscuits.

“Della closed my shore lane last spring. Said the old footpath was just neighbor kindness.”

“Did you check your deed?”

“She said the board already had.”

I cleared a place at the table.

“Ask for what they checked.”

Mara sat down slowly.

“You think there might be something?”

“I think paper is worth reading before we agree it says no.”

By Saturday morning, Della had answered Nora. She claimed the easement had ended through lack of use. She supplied no release, court order, or other record to support that claim.

Nora forwarded the email with one line: Save your photographs of prior harvests.

I had eleven months of them. Some showed racks. Some showed tubs on my handcart. In three, Della stood on the lawn behind me.

Felix arrived at eight with a shovel, a metal detector, and a thermos.

“Coffee?” I asked.

“Already committed,” he said, raising the thermos.

He read the old description before looking at the garden.

“Your deed gives you passage,” he said. “It doesn't give you the lawn. We'll keep those things clear.”

“That's all I want. Passage.”

Della came out while he set up his gear.

“You cannot dig in my garden.”

Felix smiled.

“I'll start where I have permission and work from the recorded ties. Then we'll know whose garden we're discussing.”

She stayed beside her fence with her arms folded.

I had to leave to price a truck at the boat ramp. The cheapest one available cost more than I could absorb for long. I reserved it for Monday anyway. A court could not keep my crop cold.

At the ramp, gulls picked at an empty mussel shell. I watched the water and counted the hours left before harvest.

My phone rang.

Felix sounded almost cheerful.

“Found the first original pin,” he said. “You're going to want to see where her new fence is.”