Aunt Lilly sat resolutely in the rocking chair of our front porch on Market Street, with an old-fashioned blackjack hidden in the folds of her apron. Ironically, her name suggested a tranquility that was strangely at odds with blackjack-wielding. Her real Italian name was "Pasqua," which meant "Easter," but we called her "Lilly" after the Pascal flower because it was easier to pronounce.

On that particular day she took on a new role, not just as our aunt but also as our protector, a role she assumed after Uncle Frank and my grandfather died, leaving us with no men in our family, except my father who was always out working two jobs.

The blackjack Lilly held onto wasn't the slick metal kind used in gangster movies in the 1940s. It was brown rubber ugly, arrayed with hairs like a golf ball suddenly let loose. Its intended victim, Fritz Coleman, swaggered confidently down the street toward our house. Fritz had come to face my mother, who had accused his wife of consorting with my father.

Fritz appeared more like an actor out of character in a stage play than a suitable defender of his wife's name. He looked almost comic, in his yellow-loud salesman's jacket. He had a wholesale butcher shop. On Sundays he promenaded down Fourth Street tipping his hat, feigning the manners of a cultured gentleman, sauntering down the street with Mabel on his arm.

My mother sobbed uncontrollably on the phone on the day she confronted Fritz with Mabel's infidelity, but he reacted with denial, swearing to make Mother swallow her words. Now he stood at the foot of our front steps, facing Lilly primly seated in her best attire. I stood frozen inside the house behind the crystal facets of our front door, opened just a crack so I could hear.

As he stumbled up the steps, Lilly showed no emotion or fear. No doubt he'd had a few drinks to bolster his courage, for his face was tinged by the alcoholic's pink mask and perspiration stained the armholes of his jacket.

When she saw him, Lilly began rocking back and forth in her chair until the moment he reached the top step. Then suddenly, as if choreographed in advance, she rose, gracefully raised her hand above her head, the blackjack clenched in midair, her step perfectly timed to match his approaching gait.

"You taka one more step, and I'm gonna bumble your brains," she said in broken English.

Fritz stopped. He made no move and stood there on the porch staring into what must have crossed his mind as a very formidable woman.

Lilly was as tall as he, a bit matronly looking with large sagging breasts but strong arms that plumped her sleeves. Maybe Fritz was afraid of Lilly, afraid of this woman poised there defiantly, afraid of losing his dignity. This was the 1940s and one just did not physically strike a woman unless one was a rogue.

Outraged by my mother's call, he told her he was not going to take the word of a simpering Guinea woman who had accused his wife of cavorting with her husband.

I watched his face, a jigsaw of patterns behind the glass, saw his lips say something to Lilly, their voices an unintelligible garble. He shifted his hat into his other hand, animatedly pointing his finger to his chest as if speaking of himself. He paused at the foot of the steps, and in that moment between movement and indecision, something must have crossed his mind. Slowly, he put his hat on his head, as one foot backed down on the pavement, followed by the other. Lilly lowered her arm as Fritz turned and walked away down Fourth Street.

Whatever Fritz' s motive for retreat was that evening, we never mentioned the incident again. We just went on like we always did after some crisis, whether it was my father's infidelities or Uncle Frank's untimely death of prostate cancer. The women in the family stood up under the blows of disappointment.

That evening, assembled in the kitchen, my mother washed chickpeas; my grandmother pummeled dough into pliant loaves and laid them into black iron pans; and Lilly stood at the stove, stirring the basil into the dimpled kettle of fresh tomatoes popping their skins in the boiling water.

Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.