“Before she died in that hospital room in Harrisburg, I told her I was finished with physical conflict.

I told her our daughter would grow up with none of that anywhere near her.”

“You didn’t bring conflict onto this street, David,” Nora said.

“You put an end to it.”

“I took off my flannel shirt in front of forty neighbors,” I said.

“I let a nineteen-year-old kid swing a hook at my head.”

“And you didn’t hit him back,” Nora said.

She rested her small, paper-thin hand on my left wrist for two seconds.