Page 90 of Begin Again

“You could have called or texted rather than driven over here,” she said.

“I could have. I might have had a panic moment.”

He started to eat his dinner, his eyes on hers and then back to his food.

“Do you think I would have let a homeless person in my house?” she asked. “Or even opened the door? I saw who it was. I could have ignored it and didn’t. I even talked to her through it to hang on because I was sleeping and she woke me.”

“I thought of all of that after the fact. In the moment I was just in a rush to get to you. You have to understand, Liz. There are parts of your life you don’t talk about. Or it took a long time to talk about.”

“Trust again,” she said.

“No,” he said. “I’m messing this up. Normally it’s Evan that can’t talk his way out of a paper bag and now it’s me. I trust you one hundred percent. And I know you trust me too.”

“Why do you know that?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“Because you called me when Tanner showed up,” he said.

“That’s right. When I was worried or concerned, I called you over my father. So you should have thought of that before you rushed over here to see if I was getting mugged in my own home rather than serving a hundred-pound woman some damn eggs and toast and a cup of coffee on a cold day.”

She managed to put him in his place faster than his mother had ever been able to do.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I overreacted.”

“You did.”

The two of them continued to eat. He wasn’t sure what more they could talk about in terms of the camera. He’d said he was sorry.

He didn’t want to bring up her mother. She’d said she’d get to it and he had to let her.

His plate was almost cleared, hers too, when she finally said, “I’m trying to wrap my head around what to say in regards to my mother.”

“I figured as much,” he said.

He finished his meal and picked his plate up and started to clean the kitchen.

She finished and rinsed her plate and put it in the dishwasher.

“My mother was homeless before a month or so ago,” she said.

He turned and looked at her. “Why?”

“Because she’d either been kicked out of the supportive housing she was in for violating rules or she left on her own for not wanting to follow the rules and take her meds. It’s a cycle she’s had most of her life.”

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.

“She has severe bipolar with depression. I don’t think she always had it. I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does.”

“Tell me what you do know,” he said. “I want to understand.”

“What have you heard?” she asked. “I know kids talked when we were in school. I’m sure your parents have heard things.”

“If my mother knows anything she hasn’t said a word. I haven’t asked. They don’t judge, you know that. If I think back, I remember kids saying your mother was crazy. And I’m sorry, I know that is insensitive and I don’t mean it. Just what I heard.”

“I heard it too,” she said. “Not just from kids at school but from Tanner. There is a difference between my mother’s mental illness and others.”

There was part of him that was fighting the hurt that her ex knew about her mother and she didn’t tell him.

“When did things start?”

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