The next day was a Saturday, and Eric was in a better mood than usual. He came home with a lot of extra fruit, for some reason, but Tina didn’t complain. She was fixing their lunch when she made a rather sudden decision. She told Eric, occupied in his office, that she would be right back. She ducked outside and marched determinedly over to Bette’s, a small box in her hand. She rapped on the door.

It didn’t take long before Bette answered, looking very summery in a yellow sundress. “Tina, hey!”

Well, she seemed happy enough to see Tina, that was good. This might not have to be so awkward after all.

“Hi. Eric went shopping today and got too many cartons of blueberries… do you like them?”

“I do…” Bette took the proffered carton with a smile. “That’s sweet of you, thanks.”

“No problem,” Tina said, clearing her throat. She turned to leave. “So anyway, I…”

“Do you want to come in?”

“I can’t,” Tina said hastily. “I mean, I can’t right now, I just slipped out while I was making lunch.”

“I see. Well thanks for the blueberries.”

“Sure, no problem” Tina waved goodbye and walked back to her house. How silly of her. She had no reason to do that, other than to try to smooth over her weird behavior every other time she had encountered Bette. Whatever, it was done. She ambled past Eric’s study and he called out to her.

“Where were you?”

“I just ran across the street for a minute.”

Eric raised his eyebrows and rocked back in his chair. “Oh?”

“Yeah. I took our neighbor over some of the extra blueberries.”

“Why?”

“No reason, Eric,” Tina said feeling a prickle of irritation. “Actually there is a reason, you bought so much fruit a lot of it will spoil before I get a chance to use it.”

Instead of getting annoyed, Eric chuckled. “I guess I did. Maybe next time you should come with me to the store… make sure I don’t make a mistake like that again.”

Tina didn’t like where this conversation was going, so she changed the subject

“Lunch is almost ready. It’s nothing fancy. Want me to bring your food in here?”

“Would you? I’ve got to go over these reports for a presentation Monday.”

Tina returned to the office a few minutes later with two sandwiches and a beer. Eric gave her a quick smile of thanks before returning to his paper. Tina ate by herself in the living room, vegging out in front of the TV.

The rest of the day passed before she knew it, and then she was lying in bed, thinking over her day. She didn’t know what had made her go over to Bette’s like that, other than a nebulous desire to befriend her. One minute she was dodging her, the next she was going over to her place. Bette was probably confused as well. She supposed that she would rather have Bette as a friend than not.

She realized with a start that she hadn’t thought of Sarah they way she usually did throughout the day. Maybe she was getting better. Maybe her heart was finally starting to heal. She slept, with an unaccustomed feeling of peace.