Chapter 18

Tina immediately flashed back to her recent conversation at 3:00 in the morning with Angelica, knowing then that she had questions about the miscarriage at that time but needed time to absorb Tina’s recent admission. Tina was at a distinct advantage, not being taken by surprise at Angelica’s question. Bette, on the other hand, looked completely taken back by what her daughter had just asked.

“What did you just ask?” Bette said still in shock.

“I asked why you didn’t tell me I had a brother.”

“The other part.”

“I asked if you loved him more then you love me.”

“Why would you think that Honey?” Bette said tenderly.

“Because you wanted to be a family with him, you were still together when Mom was pregnant with him. But, you weren’t together when Mom was pregnant with me and you still aren’t even though I’m here. You don’t want to be a family now and I was just thinking it might be because you don’t love me enough to try to make it work.”

Angelica let fresh tears flow as Bette blinked rapidly to hold hers back. She held Angelica, once again, in a tight, loving embrace while Angelica’s emotions spilled out in the form of sobs.

“Why don’t I answer this one?” Tina said as she motioned for both Angelica and Bette to sit next to her on the couch. She pulled Angelica into her body so her arm could snuggle them together. Her other hand played with Angelica’s hair, a habit she formed when dating Bette. She used it as a means to calm Bette down often throughout their relationship and it had a similar calming effect on their daughter. Bette sat down as she waited for Tina to answer this round of questioning.






Alice took another sip of her lemonade as Helena pulled a chair up to their table at The Planet to join them.

“So what did I miss today?” she asked.

“Nothing much,” Shane said as she scouted the crowd for faces of people that could hold her interest.

“How can you say nothing much?” Alice asked her in disbelief. “Bette and Tina were here this morning and I’m telling you something is going on.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, for starters, was there a crisis at work?”

“No,” Helena looked confused. “Not that I know of and I should know, given I’m the one paying the bills. Why do you ask?”

“Tina claimed there was a crisis at work and stayed out all night. Then she just so happens to walk into The Planet with Bette this morning at the same time.”

“Oh,” Helena said without really making a connection to the events.

“That’s it?” Alice asked.

“Well nothing says that her behavior has anything to do with Bette. It could have been a mere coincidence and she could just have made up an excuse about work to get you to stop barging in on her personal life.”

“It wasn’t a coincidence,” Alice said ignoring the last part of Helena’s statement. “I was definitely picking up after-sex vibes.”

“So what if they did have sex?” Dana asked. “It’s not like it hasn’t happened before.”

“Amen Dane,” Shane added twirling her napkin around her index finger with a straw hanging out of her mouth. On Shane, the look was very tempting.

“You’re covering for them.”

“And what if I am Al? If they’re happy that’s all I care about.”

“So you think they’re back together?” Helena asked Alice.

“Maybe working on it,” Alice said in a sing-song voice with a smile on her face. “I really hope they are because they belong together, no offense to you Helena.”

“None taken, that ship has sailed. I just want them all to be happy.”





Tina took a deep breath to settle her thoughts and quickly organize them. She wanted to ensure that her presentation of the facts was easily understood by Angelica.

“First, we are a family. The three of us are a wonderful family. We may not look like families that you’re used to Honey, but we are still a loving, supportive group. We don’t have that many things different about us relative to a ‘traditional’ family.”

“We look completely different,” Angelica said quietly.

“We do, but we still love each other very much. We still support each other very much. Looking different doesn’t mean you aren’t a family, it’s just a small difference then what people may be used to.”

“It’s different enough to get teased.”

“Different enough that small-minded people feel threatened and insignificant enough to thrive on the drama of those differences,” Bette added to the conversation. “That’s not our problem.”

“That’s a fancy way of saying they’re just jealous,” Tina said chuckling.

“Sort of,” Bette agreed smiling herself.

“When Mama B and I decided to start our family, we didn’t love each other more then we do today,” Tina said carefully. “The dynamics were different, we were together as a couple, but the love that I had for your mother back then has only grown as we’ve grown into the people we are today.”

“Just a different kind of love,” Angelica added, mocking the numerous times this conversation had occurred already in her life. She began to feel badly for her past behavior being that she could recite what Tina was saying almost word for word. That told her that she had been too pushy regarding Bette and Tina’s relationship over the years.

“There’s nothing wrong with loving people in different ways Angie,” Tina said. “When we decided to become pregnant we asked some of our friends if they would be willing to donate so that we could understand our child’s medical history. Plus, if they wanted to have a relationship with you, we were fairly certain it would be easier if we already started out as friends.”

Angelica just sat quietly as Tina played with her hair and listened.

“Our good friend agreed to donate, but he didn’t know that he had a low sperm count,” Tina continued. “So we tried month after month to get pregnant without being able to. I had quit my job to prepare myself for being a mom, leaving it all behind to dedicate myself to the role of birth mother.”

“Didn’t you want to be the birth mother Mama B?”

“Oh God no,” Bette said looking scared. “I’ve spent my entire life avoiding pain so welcoming it with open arms in any form is frightening.”

Bette’s reaction caused Angelica to begin to smile as Tina shook her head in amusement.

“Anyway, when we found out that Sean couldn’t help us get pregnant the search for a donor had to start all over again. It was hard on me Angie, I felt like the one ‘job’ I had I couldn’t do while all the financial responsibility fell on Mama B and she excelled at it. She started to feel overwhelmed and I started to feel like a failure. She worked longer hours to compensate for that fear of being solely responsible for our finances and I started to resent her more for not being there for me, making me feel like she didn’t want to spend time with a failure. We still loved each other, but we grew apart quickly. It was like this vicious cycle that we couldn’t break out of.”

“Then why did you want to have kids?”

“Because we both thought that if we could just move past that tough spot and get pregnant our problems would be solved.”

“Oh,” Angelica responded to Bette’s twisted logic.

“I’m not saying it’s right,” Bette continued. “But when you want something so badly, like we wanted a child, you’ll stop at almost nothing to get it and think it’s the answer to everything.”

“So Mama B came to me with a new donor,” Tina continued her story. “I got mad because I felt that I should have had a say in the person that was picked, given that I was going to be carrying the baby. That caused a fight between us, which became more and more common and harder to move past as the pressure of not being pregnant weighed on us both.”

“So you fought because you couldn’t get pregnant?”

“We fought because we wanted something so badly and when it didn’t happen there became so much emotion surrounding it that it was explosive. If I worked longer hours, it became an issue because your Mom would be here with nothing to take her focus away from not being pregnant. If I came home, there was the pressure that being together reminded us that we weren’t able to have our dream,” Bette said.

“Do you understand so far Honey?” Tina asked wanting to check in to ensure they hadn’t confused her.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Mama B had a friend, an artist friend, named Marcus Allen Wood. He had a child already so it was safe to assume that he could get someone pregnant. We had a list of qualities that we were looking for and Marcus matched up.”

“What was the list?”

“We wanted a child that mirrored who we were so Bette was set on an artist because it’s her passion. I had my own list of qualities and being that I didn’t know Marcus, I got angry that I wasn’t being considered.”

“Did he fit your list?”

“Eventually yes he did. I had concerns about using him because I felt that we would be inviting a lot of discrimination into a child’s life by having an African-America donor.”

“Like me being teased because I’m biracial?”

“Exactly,” Tina said happy that Angelica understood her mindset as she tried to explain it as best as she could. “But I was wrong Angie, being teased at your school has little to do with you and more to do with the person that teases.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Bette interjected. “You have to understand that as you mature and become an adult Angie, what you’re being teased about right now will matter less and less as equality is built into public policy and tolerance is taught in schools.”

“Public policy?”

“Laws,” Tina said simply.

“They have laws, we’re studying them in school.”

“But sometimes it isn’t enough to just study them in school. You have to lead by example and that’s what we’re trying to teach you.”

“I try,” Angelica said sadly.

“I know you do and it’s a big role for such a young woman to take on,” Bette said as she rubbed her daughter’s leg in comfort. “All we can ask of you is that you don’t give up and let those small-minded people make you feel badly for who you are.”

“Anyway, I met Marcus and after I completely destroyed your mother’s feelings saying I wasn’t ready to commit myself to an African-American donor things got worse. We drifted apart more and more until I realized that as long as we loved each other and our child, none of that mattered. A child that we conceived would be loved no matter what they looked like.”

“So you used Marcus?”

“Yes, we used Marcus and got pregnant with your brother.”

“What happened?”

“It just wasn’t meant to be,” Tina said sadly. Angelica felt badly seeing the pain in her mom’s eyes revolving around the topic of conversation.

“Angelica, we will always have an empty seat around our table for him. It’s not that you filled it or we compare you to him because we don’t. You’re special because it’s you and he was special because it was him. Do you understand what I am trying to say?”

Angelica just nodded at Bette for her response.

“So I was pregnant for 13 weeks and then lost him without warning.”

“I’m sorry,” Angelica was sincere in her words.

“Thank you,” Tina said smiling. “It was very hard to get through that but we did.”

“RIght, so why break up?” Angelica asked. “Cathy’s mom had a miscarriage and they didn’t break up, they just tried again when her doctor told her they could and now she has a baby brother.”

“Well I wasn’t ready to try again for a while after I lost him,” Tina said with tears in her eyes. Bette put her arm on the back of the couch to touch Tina’s shoulder in an effort to console her. Tina just looked down at Angelica, wanting to convey the right message regarding her emotions at the time. “I wanted to just escape everything, so I fell into a depression.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like when you’re sad all the time and don’t want to be around anyone. When you feel just lost with no hope of getting found or finding your own way to something that would give you hope and happiness.”

“So you still spent less time with Mama B?”

“Yes,” Bette answered. “But I also worked more because then I could escape feeling sad while I was focused on something else.”

“So you grew further apart?”

“Exactly,” Tina said grateful her daughter understood the pattern of destruction they fell into to. “But then I started to feel better and began to want to live that dream again. But losing your brother was so hard on both of us that I wanted to spare Mama B the pain if it happened again.”

“Losing the baby?”

“Well that, yes, but also if it took months and months of work to get pregnant. I didn’t want Mama B to go through that emotional turmoil again. I saw how hurt she was when someone mentioned our loss and because I love her so much, I wanted to spare her any pain that I could.”

Angelica just waited to listen to the rest of the story hoping it would become clearer.

“I went on my own without Mama B to go through another round of inseminations.”

“Is that getting pregnant?”

“Yes,” Bette said smiling at Angelica.

“So Mama B didn’t know you were pregnant or wanted to try again?”

“That’s right,” Tina said.

“So I didn’t leave your Mom because of you, it had nothing to do with you at all. I love you and when I did find out that Mom was pregnant with you I did everything I could to make it right so we would be a family.”

“And we were for a while,” Tina added. “At no time ever did either one of us waiver in our love for you Baby.”

“Then what was the problem? Why did you break up before Mama B even knew I existed if it wasn’t me?”




Helena looked at Alice with a confused look on her face.

“So why is this the topic of conversation again?”

“Because it’s Bette and Tina and I want them both to be happy. I happen to think that happiness lies with them being a couple again.”

“So you’ll do your best to push them even if they aren’t ready?” Shane asked in a sarcastic tone.

“No, I’ll proudly sit on the sidelines while my Earth Daughter nudges them in the right direction.”

“Ah that’s fair,” Helena said sarcastically.

“Al, please make us a promise to just stop,” Dana said. “I think we all want Bette and Tina to be happy and if that’s together, then so be it. But I don’t think that encouraging anyone to push that along is helping.”

“I disagree.”

“Fine, but please just promise us that you’ll stop.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Alice said sadly. “I believe in true love Dana and when it’s staring someone in the face I want them to have it so much I push it.”

“Al,” Shane shot Alice an arched eyebrow.

“Fine,” Alice slumped down in her chair feeling rejected. “I won’t push anymore, but I will still investigate my woman’s intuition that they were together last night.”

“Hallelujah,” Dana said. “I’m sure they’ll appreciate that Al.”

“God help us all,” Helena added with a smile on her face.





Tina tried her best to formulate a response to Angelica’s question that didn’t cross the boundaries of what her and Bette agreed made them each comfortable. This was Bette’s main point of fear and Tina wanted to minimize that as much as possible.

“Remember when I told you that throughout this entire time we were growing apart?” Tina was doing her best to answer Angelica’s question without overstepping a boundary she knew Bette was uncomfortable with. “We grew so far apart that we couldn’t be together anymore.”

“Did you get pregnant right away when you tried?”

“Quickly, yes I did,” Tina said wondering where this line of questioning was leading.

“But you didn’t fall apart overnight though right?”

Bette cringed, her daughter was very intelligent for age and while she was proud of her for that, at this moment it proved to be more of a curse then a blessing.

“Couldn’t you go get help? Cathy’s parents went to therapy you know.”

Bette squirmed on the couch knowing the inevitable had arrived, the time to discuss her affair was upon them.

“We tried therapy,” Tina said still dancing around the obvious answer to Angelica’s question.

“Why didn’t it work? It worked for them.”

“Because we didn’t stay in therapy,” Bette said sadly.

“Why?”

“Because of me,” Bette avoided her daughter’s gaze as she fought to control her emotions.

“You didn’t want to stay in therapy and try even if it could help?”

“It’s not that Angie,” Bette said now facing her and looking her in the eyes. “I would have stayed in therapy if I thought that it would have made a difference. I didn’t like going, but I would have continued if it would have made a difference and we would have been together.”

“Cathy said her parents fought all the time but reconnected when they worked at it.”

“And that can happen, if both parties were able to work at it and the relationship isn’t broken beyond repair.”

“Growing apart made your relationship broken beyond repair?”

“No,” Bette said sadly. “But I needed to feel wanted and desired, which had more to do with me then your Mom.”

Bette felt Tina’s hand on her arm offering her support for however much she chose to share with their daughter about her feelings. The time had come upon them when Bette knew there was no more avoiding the final nail that had killed their relationship.

“So when someone approached me wanting more then a friendship, I cheated on Tina, with a woman named Candace.”