”We can try, but I can’t promise that I can tell you everything now”

”I’ll ask you a few questions. Tell us if you’re tired or if it’s too difficult, and we’ll move it to the next session”

”Okay”

”How far do you think her death has separated you from each other?”

Bette started to touch the bracelet she was wearing on her wrist. ”At first we couldn’t see each other. We slept in different rooms, didn’t overlap in the apartment. At the time, the therapist told me that many couples who have lost a child are separated in this way – they can’t see each other because they are a living reminder of what happened. A few weeks later, we were reunited. We talked about Oli, cried together, told each other about our condition, but it was a short-term impulse. Tina started actively taking pills, and I tried to be close, but in the end I just got mad at her. Then I had that business trip and everything I’ve already told you. At that time, I was completely engrossed in my work. I literally spent the night in the gallery or in the office. We were very distant, talking only about Angie or about everyday things. Tina gave me this bracelet a year after Oli died. She gave it to me and told me to wear it. She wanted this bracelet to remind me of her and that we were together, because at the time it was almost invisible. We didn’t talk, we didn’t make love once in all that time, and we didn’t go anywhere together. I built such a high wall around me, and all I could hear was Tina’s soft voice, but I couldn’t see her, couldn’t feel her. She tried to get close, but I just didn’t give her a chance. Didn’t give us a chance”

”Did your divorce happen because of Oli’s death?”

”No. We didn’t get divorced because of Oli” Bette said it very sharply and quickly, and realized that her tone was a little rough. ”I’m sorry”

”You don’t have to apologize. Is this question inappropriate?”

”No, no, it’s okay. It wasn’t Oli’s death as such that led to the divorce, but the way we behaved for several years afterwards. Many factors influenced this. We got divorced because of distance, lack of communication and intimacy. Our move back to Los Angeles was initiated by Tina. At first I was against it, I didn’t have the internal resource to change the situation so dramatically. And Tina didn’t have the resources to continue to put up with the gap between us, to put up with the fact that I wasn’t around all the time. It was like we weren’t together, even though we lived under the same roof, raised Angie together, and knew that we still loved each other. I remember one moment very well. One night, she was taking a shower and I was standing in the bathroom washing off my makeup. We often talked like this after work about any nonsense that gave us at least a little reason to communicate. That night, she said she couldn’t live like this anymore. I remember when she turned off the water but didn’t come out of the shower and I heard her crying but didn’t see her. Then something turned over in me and I felt painfully sorry for us. At that moment, for the first time in a year and a half, I felt like I wanted to be as close to her as possible, reassure her, and tell her that we could handle it. It was as if the feeling I had for Tina before Oli’s death suddenly returned to me. I do not know, as if I was electrocuted by the sound of her crying and that phrase of hers. At that moment, I was ready to move anywhere if we both got a little easier with each other. We had a long hug in the hot shower that night, and then Tina gave me a letter describing how she felt. You know, it was like a little update, like we were hooked on each other again”