Here is what would have happened if I had struck her.

She was in her late sixties.

I am not.

If I had raised my hand to an elderly woman and knocked her down, then no matter what she had done first, no matter that she had struck me, the story would have instantly and permanently become a different story.

It would have become the story of a wealthy younger woman who assaulted her frail mother-in-law.

There would have been a photograph of her bruise and none of mine.