Page 49 of We'll Meet Again

“It ain’t gonna bite you, Billie,” he said as he laughed.

She sniffed it. “It doesn’t seem too dangerous.”

With one last anxious glance at him, she put her lips around the straw and took a sip. He watched her face transform from apprehensive to perplexed to…pleased? Her brows retreated up her forehead and the corners of her mouth turned up. Then she swallowed.

“That’s actually quite nice,” she said. “I mean, it’s practically a dessert, but it’s surprisingly refreshing.”

“Glad you like it.”

“Can you tell me your horrifying story now?”

“Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath. Her eyes were glued to him. “When I was nine years old, I got stabbed.”

She spewed into the straw, and droplets of tea flew out of the cup. “What?”

“Don’t freak out!”

“It’s quite too late for that!” she cried. “How did that happen? Is someone after you? Who the fuck stabs a nine-year-old?”

“I will say, I’m flattered by your concern,” he said with a grin and leaned just a touch closer to her.

She put her hand on his chest and forced him back a step. “Oi, keep your sheepish charm away from me and answer my questions.”

He heaved a sigh. “I was trying to defend my mother.”

“From…a robber?”

“Her heroin dealer.”

Her eyes went wide, and for the first time, he found he couldn’t look at them for too long. He knew what he would find if he did. After the shock came the judgment, and he couldn’t take that. Not from anyone, but especially not from her.

“Oh…blimey,” she said softly.

“That’s one word for it,” he said. “She was an addict before I was born, but she never could get clean and stay clean.”

Not even for her son, he thought, with that old, familiar, guilt-ridden bitterness.

“Is that how she -” Billie stopped and cleared her throat. “Is that how she died?”

“Yeah,” he choked out and swallowed hard, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to banish the memory of that day. “I came home from school and found her in the bathroom. I, uh…called an ambulance, but…she was already gone.”

The sound of her heels stepping across the floor made him look up. She had set down her tea and crossed into the living room to his bookshelf, atop which sat the handful of framed photographs he had brought with him. One was of him and Betty on the day he made his MLS debut, and there was a triple frame that contained pictures from his first match through his high school years. On the end was a photo of Ethan and his mother when he was seven or eight. He held his first trophy, and his mother knelt beside him, kissing his cheek. That photo was the focus of Billie’s attention.

“She was beautiful,” she said.

She turned to face him, and this time, he didn’t look away. No one ever said that after learning the truth of what happened. Most people had questions about how his mother was allowed to keep him or remarked about how awful it must have been to grow up with her. Billie’s kind sympathy made his chest feel like molten lava.

“You think so?” he asked.

She nodded. “What was her name?”

“Laura…Laura Knight.”

“Laura,” she repeated, and turned back toward the photo. “You look more like your grandmother, but…the dimples. Those are Laura.”

He strode over and really looked at the picture for the first time in ages. His mother had missed a lot of games, but she made it to that final, which explained the smile so big it nearly split his face in half. Not only did they win, but she was there to see it.

“She was awfully generous to share those with me,” he said lightly.

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