The Adventures Of Bette Porter And Sissee Gardner After Yale (Part 5, Chapter 7)

PART FIVE: PHILLIPS, WISCONSIN

Chapter 7

When the telephone started to give it’s warning of being off the hook, I finally hung it up. Bette was very upset with me after I told her about Howie and I being snowbound. In fact, she hung up on me and I literally broke down and cried.

I stood up from having been sitting on the floor in the kitchen, walked into the dining room, passed my parent’s closed bedroom door and into the living room. Everyone else had gone to bed since it was after midnight so it was very quiet in the house. I wrapped my own arms around myself because I was chilled as I stood in front of the big bay window. I looked outside at a street light and watched lazy snow flakes falling, covering yesterday’s snow with a fresh layer. It looked so peaceful compared to the turmoil that churned inside of me.

Then suddenly the telephone rang. The sound pierced the house like the crack of a pistol shot and I damn near jumped out of my skin!

I rushed to answer it as much out of an eagerness to know if it was Bette, as to squelch the noise before it woke up everyone in the house, downstairs as well as upstairs.

“Hello?” I whispered, out of breath. I had left the phone on the floor in the kitchen so I sat back down against that wall.

“Sissee?”

“Yes?”

“I‘m sorry.”

"I said her name softly. No, I did not just say it, I caressed it. “Bette…..”

“I‘m so very sorry. In fact, I called you right back and the line was busy.”

“I listened to the hum because I didn’t want to let you go.”

“I don’t know what comes over me. I just want to run away when I can’t control something.”

“We can’t keep hurting each other like this.”

“I know, baby. I knew I was wrong as soon as I hung up.”

“Okay, then let’s talk about it,” I said. “I don’t want it hanging over our heads.”

“I’ll just have to take your word for it, that you don’t know what happened between you and Howie and hope that nothing did.”