I made the dish Tuesday night, the same recipe I always make when I don't know what else to do with my hands, and I drove it over to my neighbor's house after the thing she said to me at the block meeting, the thing that landed harder than she probably meant it to and that I have been turning over in my head for four days now. I pulled into her driveway, walked the dish up to the porch, set it down by the mat, and drove away before she ever opened the door. I told myself I was just being considerate, that she was probably busy, that leaving it was its own kind of apology. I knew exactly what I was doing. I was apologizing to a porch so I would not have to apologize to a person. I have been sober thirteen years, and conflict was one of the last things sobriety actually fixed in me, long after the drinking stopped. I used to believe I had become a peaceful man simply because I no longer threw plates or slammed doors the way I did in my worst years. What I have had to admit la...