“He attacked my boy,” Harry yelled to the group, his loud voice carrying plainly across the grass through my open screen window.

“Unprovoked assault, right there by the lilac bushes.”

Miller glanced at my house, his face tight, but he didn’t say anything.

Arthur stood on the curb nearby with his arms crossed, letting Harry’s story hang in the late afternoon air without adding one true word.

From behind the living room curtain I watched Mrs.

Gable from number forty-two nod along as Harry talked.

Harry twisted his signet ring around his pinky as he talked, his face red in the sun.