The short version is what I tell at bars when someone doesn’t believe me. They cut down my trees for a better view, so I shut down the only road that led to their front doors. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. People usually set their glass down when I say it and look at me like they’re waiting for the part where I’m joking.I’m not joking.

The long version starts on a Tuesday that felt so ordinary it almost hurts to think about. Blue sky, late September, the kind of afternoon that’s still warm enough to remind you summer isn’t quite done. I was halfway through a turkey sandwich at my desk, doing nothing more significant than reading emails about a permit application, when my sister Mara called.

Mara doesn’t call during work hours. She texts, she leaves voice messages she never fully finishes, she sends photos of things she thinks I might find interesting. But she doesn’t call, not at two in the afternoon on a workday, not unless something is on fire or bleeding or about to become a legal problem. I answered with a mouthful of sandwich and said, “Hey, what’s up?” and what I heard was wind and her breathing in a way that told me she had been walking fast.

“You need to come home,” she said. “Right now.”