By Tuesday, the gate had three padlocks and a bicycle leaning against it like a protest sign.
The bicycle belonged to Mrs. Haddad’s grandson, who had left it there after learning that the shortcut to the Linden Street bus stop was closed. The first padlock belonged to our church. Len, who chaired our property committee, had added the second after the latch broke. Nobody would admit to owning the third.
“You must have put it on,” I said to Imam Nabil.
“Why would I lock the gate I asked you to open?”
“You have a committee. They surprise you too.”
He gave me the look he reserved for jokes made before coffee. Then he pointed to the orange notice tied to the fence. The town was digging up the other end of Linden Street starting Thursday at dawn. For three weeks, the gate between our church lot and the mosque garden would be the shortest walk to the bus stop. The alternative went around two long blocks and crossed the work trucks’ entrance. Mrs. Haddad could manage it, perhaps. Her grandson, his bicycle, and his enormous music case would take a different view.
I was Pastor Jo. Nabil was the imam at the mosque next door. We had exchanged borrowed extension cords, complaints about parking, and exactly one excellent recipe for lentil soup. Friendship would have been a generous word for it, though I knew which cup in my kitchen he liked because it had a handle he could fit three fingers through.
Our property committee had voted to close the gate after eighteen folding chairs vanished from the hall. The minutes did not name a suspect. People in the hallway did. Nabil had heard the same story from the other side of the fence, where it had already grown into an accusation.
“I can ask my board to meet tonight,” I said. “We can put someone at the gate while the road is shut.”
“Someone from your church?”
“From both places, if people are willing.”
“That isn’t the same offer.”
He was right. I had volunteered his congregation for a job on land we owned. I could feel a sermon rising in me about neighborliness, which is usually a sign that I should stop talking and find out what the neighbor actually wants.
“What would work?” I asked.
“Light it. Fix the latch. Open it for anyone using the path, not just people we approve. And tell your committee to stop asking where our people put your chairs.”
“I’ll find the chairs.”
“That would help.”
He went back through the mosque’s side door. I stood by the bicycle until a driver honked at me for occupying half the lane. The third padlock was brass, dented at one corner. I knew I had seen it before.
At noon, I found all eighteen chairs behind a painted cardboard stable in our own storeroom. The children’s Christmas pageant had ended nine months earlier. I counted twice because I could hardly believe our committees had managed to turn a stack of furniture into a neighborhood feud. One chair had a paper star taped to its back. I took a photograph and sent it to Nabil.
He replied: The star is convincing evidence.
I sent the same photograph to the property committee with a short correction and an apology for not checking sooner. At four, the committee chair, Len, called me.
“They might have moved them back,” he said.
“The star’s been there since December.”
“We still have the gate problem.”
“We do. The chairs are not part of it.”
“The lights are broken. A cyclist hit the fence last month.”
This was true. I had visited the cyclist, who was more embarrassed than hurt. The gate was narrow and the path dark after sunset. Opening it unchanged would make it easier for Mrs. Haddad to reach the bus and easier for another bicycle to strike the same fence.
“Let’s price a light,” I said.
“Before tonight’s meeting?”
“You know the electrician better than I do.”
Len grumbled, which was his way of agreeing to do something quickly.
Nabil came to the church office at five carrying two pages of names. His congregation had asked families how they reached the bus. Some used the gate even when it was shut, lifting toddlers over the fence while adults went around. I had no idea. The path looked empty whenever I passed it, because I passed it in my car.
“I don’t want to present a petition as a favor we’re asking of you,” he said. “The bus stop serves both streets.”
“Then present it as information.”
“Will your board listen?”
“They’ll hear it. I can work on listening.”
He set the pages on my desk. The cup with the broad handle was still on the shelf. I filled it with tea from the pot, though he had not asked, and we worked through the route on a printed map. He pointed out where the work trucks would enter. I circled the broken light. Neither of us could explain the third padlock.
At six-thirty, Len arrived with a quote from the electrician. We could afford one light by the gate, not new lighting along the whole path. Nabil offered to ask his building team to cover the lamp; I said the church should pay because the fixture was ours. He said the use would be shared. We spent five minutes arguing over a light bulb while our committees were gathering down the hall.
“We’re becoming friends,” I said.
“Friends let each other buy light bulbs.”
The meeting started badly. Len read the chair correction aloud, including my apology. One member asked why anyone outside the church needed our gate. Nabil unfolded his pages. Mrs. Haddad, who had come with him, explained the walk to the bus without embellishment. Her grandson stood beside her with the music case. It was a trombone, not a cello, as I had guessed. He said the long way made him late for school; then he played three notes to demonstrate how much noise he could make if asked a second question. He was not asked.
We got past the joke and down to the gate. Len wanted a person posted there until the street reopened. Nabil said his congregation could help keep an eye on the path, but he would not assign people to guard church property every morning. I had put him in that position at the fence. I said so.
The quietest member of our committee, a woman named Ruth, asked who would be responsible for the broken latch. “It won’t matter how kindly we feel if someone gets caught in it,” she said.
Len had the locksmith’s number. He admitted that when the latch broke, he had put on another padlock instead of arranging the repair, a fact he would have preferred not to announce. I offered to pay for the work from the church’s repair fund. Nabil offered half the price of the new light. Ruth proposed we open the gate only after both repairs were done, then keep the path available during the roadworks. After that, we would meet with the town and the neighbors about a permanent arrangement. Nobody called it a grand new partnership. We had a list of tasks and the names beside them.
We voted. It passed, though two members said they wanted to reconsider later. That was their right. I went home with a note to call the locksmith first thing and to tell Mrs. Haddad what we had actually decided.
On Wednesday, the electrician fitted the lamp and the locksmith fixed the latch. Len removed the first two padlocks. The brass one stayed. Nabil and I examined it while the road crew dropped off barriers at the corner. Its dented corner finally brought back the memory: I had bought it for the church shed, then lost it during the pageant. There was a good chance its key was in the tin marked stars and tape.
It was. Ruth found the tin under the painted stable, beside the eighteen chairs. “I put that lock on after the bicycle accident,” she said. “Then I forgot I had.” She handed me the key, and I was glad neither of us had to explain it to the whole committee.
On Thursday, we swung the gate open in time for the morning bus. Mrs. Haddad’s grandson went through first, wheeling the bicycle and carrying the trombone case across his shoulders. He did not look at either of us. He stopped halfway, turned back, and said, “It still squeaks.”
“I’ll put it on the list,” Len called.
Nabil waited until the boy was out of earshot. “If that list is as old as the Christmas pageant, he’ll be at university before you fix it.”
“You may buy the oil,” I said.
“Gladly.”
He took the wide-handled cup from me, drank the last of the tea, and went to find Mrs. Haddad before the bus arrived. I stayed to hold the gate for the next person. It was a man neither of us knew, taking a shortcut with a sack of laundry. He thanked me and kept walking. I let him through.