Fears
Tears and Years

Chapter 1

Sitting on the deck enjoying her
first cup of coffee of the morning listening to the waves as they crashed upon
the shore Tina allowed herself this moment to think of Bette.

This was not something she
permitted herself to do often since it reminded her of what she had foolishly
thrown away so long ago.

Angie was in her last year of high
school and would be heading off to college this fall leaving Tina alone for the
first time in many years.

It had taken her a while during the
Henry fiasco to come to her senses but by then it was too late. She knew she
had been responsible for damaging Bette’s heart beyond repair.

At the time she had thought that
she no longer loved Bette and a man was what she wanted and someone she could
love and have a good life with.

But nothing could have been further from the truth.

Oh in the beginning Henry was loving and supportative all the
things Tina thought had been missing from her life.

If she could have only seen past
her anger and realized she was making the wrong choice in turning her back on
the love her life it would be different now.

After a few years of therapy she
had finally reclaimed the person she once was but the strain of it all had
taken a toll on her relationship with her only child and now it was time for
her child to spread her own wings and fly. Was it too late? She hoped not.

After leaving Whistler she had cut
Bette out of not only her life but Angie’s too. Little had she known that was
exactly what Henry had wanted her to do. With the absence of Bette his control
over Tina gained strength.

Little by little he became less
like the kind, loving man she had met in her pool that afternoon and more like
her warden.

Soon after this transition came the
punishment phase for disobeying him. She realized now that he had always felt
inferior to Bette when it came to Tina loving him. He feared she would run back
to Bette if Bette would have her back.

She also came to see that he
thought of her friends as a conduit to Bette Porter so those relationships were
cut off too.