Lily handled grief differently. She talked too much when frightened, collected jokes, and made enthusiastic plans she sometimes abandoned after three days. At her new school, she had heard two girls say that her old shoes looked like something found in a lost-and-found bin. She had not told her mother. Instead, she had seen an advertisement on the library bulletin board for a scholarship program at Summit Ridge and brought it home as if it were a golden ticket.

“They have a beginner class on Saturdays,” she said. “And uniforms for people who can’t buy them.”

Sarah studied the brochure. Summit Ridge occupied a wing of the Brindle Creek Community Recreation Center, a renovated brick school building near the river. The academy offered private tuition, competitive teams, and several publicly supported youth classes. A city-funded access program paid a portion of the cost for qualifying families.

“Why martial arts?” Sarah asked.

Lily looked at Noah.

“Because I want to know what he knows.”

Noah made an effort to smile. “You already know how to annoy me.”

“I’m serious.”

Walt folded the newspaper and examined the brochure. “Training can be good for a child. Depends on who’s teaching.”

Sarah checked the cost. The standard program was one hundred forty-five dollars a month, more than she could justify after a move, higher heating bills, and car repairs. The scholarship application was six pages long. She filled it out with Lily at the kitchen table on a Tuesday night.

At the bottom, one question asked whether any member of the household had previous martial-arts training.

Lily reached for the pen. “Noah can help with the first class.”

“Leave him out of it,” Noah said from the doorway.

Sarah glanced up. “Honey, it’s only a question.”

“I know.”

“You haven’t been on a mat in months. Maybe it would feel good.”

“No, Mom.”

He had not shouted. That was almost worse. Sarah looked down at the form, crossed out the line Lily had begun, and wrote only that Lily had no experience.

Later, Walt found Noah carrying firewood from a stack that did not need moving.

“Something about that place bother you?” he asked.

“No.”

“You answer too fast.”

Noah set down another armload. “I’m not going back into competition.”

“Nobody asked you to.”

“They always do eventually.”

Walt sat on the porch steps with the slow care of a man respecting his hip. “Your father used to say a tool ought to be used for the job it was made for. He also said there were days when the best thing to do with a hammer was leave it in the box.”

Noah looked at him. “Which one am I supposed to do?”

“That’s why I told you both.”

The conversation ended when Lily called them inside for supper. But Walt saw how Noah’s right hand opened and closed at his side. He had seen the gesture before, after the tournament in Erie, when a boy named Simon Bell came away from a match with his arm strapped against his chest and Noah stopped sleeping through the night.

Noah had not injured Simon himself. That truth had never seemed to relieve him.

The application was approved for a trial scholarship in late September. Lily received a used white uniform, a yellow-striped practice belt, and a pair of pink-trimmed protective gloves that had belonged to an older student. She kept the gloves on the dresser beside a small photograph of her father holding a fish.