The ladder returned with a bent foot. Frank noticed as soon as Eli set it against the shed. Eli noticed him noticing. For several seconds they stood in the driveway discussing the wind.
“Did something happen?” Frank finally asked.
Eli looked at the ladder. “It slipped. Just a little.”
Frank ran his thumb along the damaged metal. He had owned it for fifteen years and lent it reluctantly. His reluctance now seemed like wisdom, a conclusion he found satisfying enough to become unpleasant.
“You might have said.”
“I'm saying now.”
The exchange went badly from there. Frank accused Eli of treating borrowed things carelessly. Eli offered to replace the ladder in a tone suggesting he would rather replace the neighbor. They parted with excessive politeness. For the next week, both found reasons to use their back doors.
Frank told the story to his daughter, expecting agreement. She asked whether Eli had been hurt. Frank hadn't thought to ask. This irritated him because the question was reasonable and did not make the ladder any less bent.
He looked across the fence that evening. A section of Eli's gutter hung loose. The ladder had apparently slipped while he was trying to reach it. Frank imagined the fall, then realized imagination was doing work a conversation should have done.
He knocked the following afternoon. “Were you hurt?” he asked when Eli opened the door.
“Bruised shoulder. Nothing serious.”
“I should have asked.”
Eli leaned against the frame. “I should have told you straightaway. I was embarrassed.”
They stood in a silence less hostile than the one in the driveway. Frank said he was still upset about the ladder. Eli said that was fair and repeated the offer to replace it, this time without the edge. They agreed to check whether the damaged part could be replaced safely by the manufacturer. Until then, neither would use it.
A professional came to repair the gutter. Frank watched from his kitchen, impressed by equipment neither neighbor possessed. He made tea afterward and took a cup across. Eli invited him in.
The conversation wandered. Eli had been trying to save money after his hours were reduced. Frank had spent much of his own early adulthood doing the same. This did not excuse returning damaged property without explanation, but it gave the story more than one person with a reasonable concern.
Frank thought later about the phrase bearing with one another. He had imagined it meant tolerating annoying people with visible patience. Perhaps it also involved the less flattering admission that he could become one of those people while being technically right.
The replacement part arrived. Eli paid for it, and Frank had the ladder checked before using it again. Their friendship did not suddenly become deep. They still disagreed about hedge height and where the snow should be piled in winter. But the next time something went wrong, there was a conversation before a week of avoidance.
In spring, Eli asked to borrow a rake. Frank handed it over and said he wanted it back before Saturday. Eli wrote a reminder on his phone. It returned on Friday, clean, with a packet of biscuits balanced on the handle. Frank took the biscuits across, and they ate them together.
