Okay Al, this next part is for T. I hope one day that she will be willing to watch it. I dont care if you guys watch it. That is up to each of you. Just promise to keep this until Tina finds it in her heart to be able to watch it. I am forever indebted to you Al. Bette once again pauses and regroups: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My beloved Tina – I dont know how long it has taken for you to be willing to watch this but please know that you are and always will be the one and only true love of my life. I have loved you from the first moment I saw you in my gallery and I will continue to love you until the day I die. I know I have no right to ask anything of you at this point, but please hear me out. I will forever regret the pain and suffering that I have caused you T.

I am sure by now you have received the papers from my attorney and realize that I have left you the house along with everything in it. I am sorry to have left all my stuff there, but I am sure the girls will help you dispose of it anyway you see fit. I took what few things I needed, but I cannot bear the memories that come with the rest. I cashed in all of our investments, as well as some of the artwork. After paying off the house and setting up a trust fund for the baby, I split what was left. This should get you by for sometime.

I know you are tired of hearing me say it but I am sorry for everything I put you through. I am sorry for breaking my promise to you. I never intentionally meant to hurt you T. I know these words sound empty to you, but they are sincere and come from the deepest part of my heart. Ive had plenty of time over these last few months to look back and see all the mistakes I made. I should have done so many things differently. I wish I had been able to open up to you and let you know what I was feeling. Maybe all of this could have been avoided. I didnt share my hurt and frustrations with you. I just let things keep building up, pushing us farther and farther apart and it didnt just happen overnight. I think the tempo just picked up a little after you quit work and we tried to have a baby. I guess I wasnt as prepared as I thought I was for the changes that followed.

I dont blame you. Even though I tried to at first. But that didnt stand up through my endless hours of self-interrogations. I am the sole one responsible for my erroneous actions. I am the sole one to blame. I keep asking myself why I was so afraid to let you inside to see my inner struggles. If I had only reached out to you. I have so many regrets, I dont know where to begin.

There is a slight pause as Bette collects her thoughts. Tears running down her face she continues.

The Jean Paul incident, I am still not sure how that caused the rift that it did between us. I tried to reach out to you and even came home early to be with you, to show you how much I loved you, but you went to the gym…I failed. I tried again the next morning when I said that if you wanted we could go to Foxworthy again, only to find out that you had already made an appointment for yourself. I so desperately just wanted to close the distance between us, but my attempts seemed to only make matters worse.

And when I thought I had found the perfect donor, well I guess I couldnt even get that right. The one thing that I thought I could be part of in the pregnancy and I failed you with that too. I should have let you know how hurt I was when you didnt want to use Marcus sperm. Our whole conversation at the Planet left me feeling like we were thousands of miles apart. You didnt remember us discussing a black donor, you were questioning a child having two mothers. When you made the statement a whole lot of otherness to put on a child I dont even know how to describe how that made me feel. I felt as though you didnt even know me anymore. I thought you were unsure of wanting a family with me and was even questioning your commitment to me.
And then, when I found out that you were ovulating and kept it from me, well I just started having so many doubts.

Bette wipes the tears from her eyes and continues:

The day of my art talk when I left the house and told you to go ahead and go out with the girls, I went and saw Kit. She told me that I let people see what I want them to see. I didnt believe it at the time, but I guess she was right. I guess I had no right being pissed off at you rejecting who I really was when I didnt even show you the real me. However, I want you to know that I did show you more of myself than I ever have or ever will show anyone else. I surprised myself at the depth to which I let you into my soul. I still rack my brain trying to figure out how things fell apart so quickly. I know their were so many things weighing on my mind, so many doubts, so many fears. You and I couldnt seem to get on the same page. It just seemed like one thing after another. When Foxworthy asked why we were trying to have a child when our ***** life was so *****, let me tell you that was a real ego bruiser, and just one more place where I was obviously failing you. I should have talked to you about it then, but when you decided to go ahead with the insemination I just pushed it all aside. I wanted to have a baby with you so much. I wanted to feel close to you again. Then when you got pregnant and everyone seemed to know before me, I let the hurt rise up again. I felt so left out, like I wasnt even needed. That you could do it all without me.

And then to throw daddy into the mix. I will forever regret not standing up to daddy and for allowing him to treat you the way he did. I know I was a real ***** when he was around and treated you just as bad as he did, if not more so. I was always so worried about his approval that I ignored what I was allowing him to do to you, to us. I dont blame you for leaving the night we told him about the baby, he treated you horribly and I just sat there and allowed it. What he said blew me away. I regret not talking to you about it. How hurt I was when he said he would never consider our child to be his grandchild. Kit asked me once what I traded to feel his pride, now I know and the cost is so hard to bear.

And then the girls said we were boring. That didnt seem to bother you but it terrified me, Bette Porter boring. I became overwhelmed again with all those feelings that I thought I had tucked neatly away. Then we started Foxworthys group, which I never was comfortable with. And Yolandas began her personal attack against me about hiding behind the likeness of my skin. Instead of group helping, it just seemed to stir up more feelings and doubts than I was already having. I didnt know what was happening to me, whether I was just panicking, if it was fear about the baby, I even questioned falling out of love. As group was heightening my confusion, you seemed to begin taking on a new persona. I felt you shutting me out and making decisions about the baby on your own, without me. I so needed to feel like part of the pregnancy but instead felt less and less.

And then you told me that I wasnt making you feel safe and loved anymore. I didnt know how to respond. I had so many different emotions running through me and I was scared to death to unload them all on you. I was afraid to let you see how broken I had become. But Please know that I was always proud to be with you and I am sorry my insecurities within myself made you doubt that.

Then I threw all my energy into getting Provocations, not realizing the toll that it would take on me, on us. I put so much into Provocations, to the point of risking our livelihood and I took so much out on you during that time. I was snappy and bitchyforget I said that, I guess I was snappy and bitchy towards you a lot, another regret I will forever have. Then the attacks from Faye Buckley started. She accused me of making the world a darker place for our child to live in, of being morally bankrupt, of corrupting children and called me a pornographer. All during the time that we found out we lost the baby.

I will never forgive myself for not being there when Dr. Wilson told you. I failed you yet again. And then during group, they had the audacity to question whether or not the loss of our child had sunk in, whether I had cried. How dare they tell me how to express my grief. At the time my focus was on being there for you and getting you through the loss. I didnt want to fail you again. It took every ounce of strength I had to be able to do that, to keep my grief at bay while trying to be strong for you. But I never was the strong one. You were always so much stronger than me. As you started pulling things together, I unraveled more and more. The Faye Buckley debate and her vile comments brought my grief back to the surface as I once again pushed it aside instead of dealing with it and sharing it with you. And then I broke down on TV, a professional failure to add amongst my mounting number of personal failures. As you began to focus on your volunteer work and gain strength, I fell to my knees. I tried so hard to control everything when in fact I was spiraling out of control. I was failing in every aspect of my life.

Then Candace came along