“*****,” Bette said.

Bette paced her small, single-occupancy dorm room.  She spent so little time here that it didn’t seem much like her space.  A few items she loved were on her desk—a picture of her father standing between she and Kit (whom she was still calling Katy), a photograph taken about three years ago of Kit with her infant son and Bette, several photographs of Bette and Ash laughing happily.  She picked up the small bowl she had made in a pottery class and felt its smoothness.  Bette stared at the phone.  She had to call her father.  She didn’t want him in New Haven. She stared at the phone until it rang.  It was either Ashton or her Dad.  Inhaling deeply through her nose, she grabbed the receiver.  “Hello?”

“Bette, this is your father.”

“Hi, Daddy,” she said cheerfully.  “I was just about to call you.”

“So you received my messages?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Excuse me?” he said, expecting an immediate correction.

“Yes.  Yes I did.”

“And?”

“And – and what?  I… you don’t have to come up here.  There isn’t a problem.”

“That’s certainly not what I’ve been told.”

Bette’s hand was shaking as she held the receiver a bit tighter in her hand.  “Yeah – yes.  Ash and I broke up last night.  It’s not his fault…”

“I am well aware of that, Bette.  What is this he’s saying about you and some woman?”

Bette saw the life that she knew slipping away.  The favoritism she had always garnered and taken for granted with Kit taking on the role of the bad seed was about to vanish.  “I’m not sure what Ash told you, but I have met someone and she is a woman and my feelings for her are standing in the way of me continuing a relationship with Ash.”  She knew it was vague and close to sterile, but there weren’t any details to tell.

“I see.”

Bette said nothing.  When her father spoke to her in that tone, she knew he did in fact ‘see’ or he didn’t see at all, but wanted no further clarification.  She waited for something more from him.