Angelica sat on the living room floor playing schoolteacher with her toys as Bette stood over the hob making dinner. At precisely 6 o’clock the doorbell rang and the brunette smiled. Punctuality was something that had always been important to her, and Jodie’s frequent tardiness annoyed her greatly.

"Angie, can you let Momma T in?" she called from the kitchen.

"Yes yes yes!" an excited Angie exclaimed as she ran to open the door to her other mother.

"Hey sweetie" smiled Tina as Angelica opened the door.

"Momma!" Angie hugged her mother and led her into the living room "Will you play teachers with me?"

"I’ll be with you in a minute Angie, just let me go give this to your mother" Tina replied, indicating the bottle of wine in her hand.

Angie busied herself with her toys, immediately absorbed in her game. Tina made her way through to the kitchen, a room very familiar to her as it was of course her who used to do all the cooking in this very house.

"Something smells good" she said genuinely as she entered the kitchen.

Bette turned and smiled "Hey"

"Hey yourself. Can I put this somewhere?" Tina held up the wine.

Bette inspected the bottle and was suitably impressed "A good choice as always"

"I learned from the best"

The two shared a smile, the awkward tension of earlier had faded. Both were secretly hoping that just for the evening they could pretend that nothing outside of those four walls existed, that they were just a family of three.

"So did Jodie teach you to cook? I hear she’s a great cook" Tina asked.

"Actually I taught myself" Bette replied proudly.

Tina smiled broadly "Ms Porter, I’m very impressed"

"I had to learn to take care of myself one day"

The smiles on both women’s faces turned sad for a moment, sad for the love that they had lost. Swallowing deeply, Tina took a step forward so that she was within touching distance of the brunette. She reached up and cupped her former lover’s cheek.

"I always did like taking care of you you know" she whispered softly.

Bette could feel her heart starting to race as she tilted her head downwards "You were so good at it"