Morning arrives in Pontiac along the Clinton River, mist lifting off the water while Woodward is still nearly empty and the light is just finding the brick downtown. United Hands Royalty Lawn Care works that hour, mowers laying clean parallel lines across yards from the Woodward Loop out to the streets off Baldwin. There is a plain satisfaction in an edge cut sharp against a sidewalk, that seam where grass stops and concrete begins, still holding straight days later. Mowing, trimming, edging, and cleanups: steady work, carried until a lawn looks tended from the curb without anyone having to say so. Summers run long and green here in the country between the lakes, and the crew keeps step with the growing, one yard and then the next, on into Auburn Hills, Waterford, and Bloomfield.