“I’m sorry,” I said, before either of us could get armored up.

“I didn’t leave because I thought I was better than you.

I left because I was scared, and I’ve been letting you think the worse thing for a year because it was easier than telling you I was scared, and I miss you, Mom.” And my mother, Rhonda, who is not a woman of many soft words either — I come by it honestly — stood in that doorway and her face came apart, and she said, “I thought you were ashamed of us,” and I said, “I was ashamed of how hard it was, that’s different,” and we cried in the doorway like fools, and then she made coffee, and we started, that weekend, the slow work of coming back to each other.

We talked more that weekend than we had in years, once the coats were off.