“Tina.” She whispered, pulling her daughter into a hug. The hug lasted almost a minute before they pulled away, both of them now crying openly.

“Mommy. It’s been forever.”

“Yes. Yes, it has.” The older woman smiled, stroking the tears from her daughter’s face. “And you must be Bette.” She turned to Bette, pulling her into as good of a hug as she could give with Angelica between them. “And baby Angelica.” She whispered, not wanting to wake the child.

She reached out and gently stroked the top of Angelica’s head.

“Come inside. Please. We threw you a little family barbecue. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, Mom.” Tina smiled, walking in the house, followed closely by Bette. They walked to the backyard where there seemed to be a game of football game going on. Two men, one muscular, the other a bit smaller, were face-to-face, ready to run.

“Hike!” The oldest man yelled, dropping back with the football and throwing it to one of the smaller man who caught it, shrugged off the other one and running to the opposite end of the backyard.

“Yeah! Touchdown!”

The other man, his brother, yelled in-between pants,

“Oh, shut up, Eric!”

Eric laughed, running over to his brother and ruffling his blond hair.

“Not my fault I’m faster than you, Jimmy boy!”

The oldest man, who had a head full of gray hair, walked over to the two of them. “Tina! How’ve you been?”

“Hey, Dad.”

The introductions continued, there were her brothers, Eric and James; her uncle, Steve; her father, Anthony; her mother, Joan; her aunts, Rebecca and Ruth; and her sister Chloe.

“Wow, you have a big family.” Bette laughed, surveying them all sitting around and laughing from the porch.

”Oh, it’s much bigger than this. The rest are probably just busy.”

Bette raised an eyebrow at her girlfriend.

“Well, actually, I’m kind of glad. I don’t think I could remember any more names.”

The two laughed and Tina leaned into her wife, who wrapped an arm around her.

“I love you, Bette… And, thank you for being here.” Tina nodded, as if happy with her sentence.

“Thank you for letting me be here.” The answer was sincere, and a smile crept onto both their faces. “God, we are such lezzes.”

“I know, right?”