My wife robbed the neighbors for the sake of her book club. It’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here.

Dear Prudence,

My wife has needlessly created an uproar with our neighbors across the street. Our neighbors have two orange trees in their front yard, and this is the time of year when the oranges are ripe. Well, my wife decided to take nearly all of the neighbors’ oranges to make marmalade for her book club, and now the neighbors are furious.

She claims she’s in the right for taking the oranges because “there were more than they could use anyway.” I recently overheard her talking to a friend on the phone, and she’s making plans to swipe the remaining oranges! I can’t watch her every minute, and I’m concerned the neighbors may take legal action if she steals the last of their oranges. I confronted her and made her promise to leave them alone. She said she would, but I don’t believe for a moment she will. What’s the answer?

—Citrus Soured

Dear Citrus Soured,

Is your wife OK? Does she have a criminal history? I’m kidding, sort of. But whenever I hear about behavior like this (which, you’re right, is totally unacceptable), it feels important to know whether it just came out of the blue or is part of a pattern. The only data I have to go on is that she’s in a book club, which tells me she has historically been a person who socializes normally and doesn’t rob everyone she meets. So if her behavior is new, I’m actually a bit concerned—not just about tensions with your neighbors, but also about what’s going on with her.

It would be one thing if she’d just plucked a few pieces of fruit off a nearby tree, but to go all the way into her neighbor’s yard and take almost all the oranges and plan to do it again, even after knowing about the neighbor’s fury, makes me think she may be dealing with one of the many things that can happen to a person’s brain that I’m not qualified to weigh in on. So put the produce aside for a second and think about whether she’s been behaving erratically in other areas of her life and whether there’s any way you might be able to chat with her doctor or therapist (or encourage her to do so) about it.

Until then, for the sake of neighborhood peace and avoiding an arrest, it wouldn’t stretch the truth too much if you said to your neighbors, “I really want to apologize for my wife’s actions. She is exhibiting some strange behaviors and is not herself at the moment, and I ask for your patience as we figure things out. She’s assured me that she won’t be returning to take any more oranges, and I’ll try to make sure this is the case. But if anything happens, please call me before calling the authorities, and I will try to make it right.”

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