“Here Tina, let me do that.” Bette took the baby carrier
from Tina and hooked it into place in the backseat of the Saab convertible.

 
Tina gladly gives the task over to Bette. Her lower back is
still bothering her, and it’s awkward to place the carrier in the back of the
Saab. Tina eased herself in the front passenger seat and watched in the
rearview mirror as Bette bends down to kiss Angelica. She couldn’t help but think
of how different Bette is around Angelica, how much kinder and less
self-absorbed. She just wished some of that could extend to other parts of
Bette’s life.

 
Rationally, Tina understood that Bette was under a huge
amount of pressure, and any extra energy she has is going into helping care for
Angelica and trying to work through her grief over her father’s death.

 
It still surprised Tina that so obviously intelligent a man,
who had fought so hard and well for civil rights could never see that his
inability to come to terms with Bette’s sexuality was just another form of
bigotry. Tina’s feelings were so mixed, that it was hard for her to feel what
she thought was an appropriate amount of empathy for Bette’s loss, which made
her oddly awkward around Bette when the woman became emotional. She hated to
see Bette in pain, but was afraid that anything she had to say other than the
most basic words of comfort would just make Bette feel worse, so she would just
sit there, trying to offer comfort through her expression or a gesture instead
of with words.

 
The baby coming so soon after had made everything even more
complicated. If circumstances were different, Tina isn’t sure she would have
moved so readily back into the same room with Bette and so exclusively into her
bed. Not that she had been interested in anything more than the couple hours of
sleep she got at a time. But there was something artificial in the way they had
gotten back together, something Tina thought was almost forced. That Helena had turned out to
be such an amazing *****, and so utterly inconsiderate of Tina’s feelings
should have made things with Bette clearer and simpler, but Tina was too unsure
of herself to know if she was making decisions because of how she felt or
because of exhaustion and expediency.