At this hour Bette rarely saw anybody, it was a pretty
time of day this early in the morning, the sun hadn’t quite given its full
strength but the peaks were there. True there were a few people who were early
to rise like her but this quiet hour or so in morning belonged to the few who
chose to start their day early like her. Her steps were steady as she watched
the same woman she’d seen nearly every morning on her run linger in the doorway
of her home. Usually she was reading the paper on her steps or watering her
lawn, today she was scantily covered, a negligee hung loosely from her
shoulders as her reluctant companion said his final farewell to her. From
across the street her intentions were clear, she wanted him to stay, and he
wanted to abide by her as well from the looks of it, but you can only keep the
working world at bay for so long. She smiled as she ran on, thinking about the
same look that Tina would give her before she left in the morning. Before she
could think twice about it, her legs carried her left instead of right. She
needed to get home and shower for work in the next couple of hours. But she
could afford a small detour, surely she’d inadvertently planned ahead for one
any way.

When she walked into Tina’s home there was stark
silence. Her heavy breaths almost echoed in the living room. She was half
expecting Angie to be up and standing at her doorway waiting for her. More than
once Bette’s steps onto the porch had made the toddler deviate from her planned
attack on her mother in the morning. She lightly stepped over to Angie’s door
and peered in through the crack. Angie was sprawled out over the bed, one of
her legs were hanging off the edge and her face nearly buried between the
nightstand and the mattress. She really did sleep like Tina when she was alone.
Too many times she’d come back from the bathroom to see what was once a
peacefully still Tina to her now sprawled out onto Bette’s side with her head
buried under a pillow.

Bette carefully crept past Angie’s door because she
knew that the toddler would be up soon enough anyway. Tina’s door was always
open, so all she had to do was peer around the doorway. Tina was bundled up in
the covers, squeezing the pillow from Bette’s side of the bed tight against her
body. Her face buried in the side of the pillow and her hair had fallen from
her hair tie into her face. The site was too tempting not to touch.