Chapter 4

After enjoying the conversation with Peggy, she departed their company, so Bette, Tina and the boys soon went out shopping for the brothers for some new clothes, shoes, a coat with a hat and gloves. They weren’t quite sure where to go so Bette plugged some names of clothing stores into her phone and did a search for what places were close to them.

They found a reasonably priced store within five blocks and off they went. Ozzie walked for a while but then grew tired so Bette carried him upon her shoulders. At first he was a little freaked out being so high off the ground, but after many reassurances that she wouldn’t drop him, he relaxed and rode proudly up there on her shoulder loving the sights and sounds before him.

“Miss Bette?” he asked her, as they were a block from the store.

“Yes, sweetie, what is it?” she replied.

“Are you ok?”

“Yes, I’m fine, Ozzie, I have good strong shoulders, you don’t have to worry about me, okay?”

“Okay…” he said to her, “Not want hurt you…”

“Well, thank you for being concerned but I’m fine. We’re almost there. It’ll be fun to get you boys some new clothes and shoes and coats for the winter.” Bette shared with her new little family.

They arrived at the door and went into the store. “So, do you want down or do you want to look from up there?” Bette asked him.

“Here, pease,” he replied, Bette beamed and followed Tina and Max who were leading the way over to the boy’s clothing department. Tina and Max picked out the pants, shirts, underwear and socks as Bette and Ozzie looked on, watching them move smoothly from one place to the other. Tina would stop and ask Ozzie if he liked what she had picked out and he would beam and nod from his perch high on Bette’s shoulders.

Finally, Tina looked over at the pair of them and shared it was time to try on the clothes to make sure they fit, so off the new little family went into the fitting rooms. Tina seemed a natural at this part of the shopping so Bette followed her lead.  While the boys and Tina tried on the clothes, Bette would return back to the racks to exchange for either bigger or smaller, shirts, pants and coats.