“How much do you think this is gonna last?” Tina asked me. Her voice just above the whisper. She was talking about the storm, I guess. But something was telling me she was also referring to something else.
I sighed, “I really don’t know”, and I looked at her. Angelica fell asleep in her lap and she was cuter than ever. I almost gave in and smiled, but I needed to let Tina see I was strong. Not the weak, jobless Bette. I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, I needed to relax my nerves. I knew that if I didn’t I probably would have had a breakdown.

We spent several minutes in silence, enjoying the relaxing sound coming from the fire, and the feeble whistle of the winds outside. Then Tina spoke again: “Do you ever sleep?”

“What?” I frowned. I didn’t really know why she was asking me that, but it somehow rattled me.

“I mean, you haven’t shown a slight sign of tiredness, since yesterday-”

“And how do you know I didn’t sleep?” I cut her off.

She raised a brow, letting me know she wasn’t having any of it… “Fine” I sighed, “I simply don’t sleep”

“But why?”

I had forgotten how stubborn she could be “I dream”. Here, I said it.

“Nightmares?” she asked.

“No… the good ones”

She stared me in the eyes, and I knew she was struggling with the urge to say something else, to try to make it better, but thank God she looked away.

But it wasn’t over. Actually, I’d rather listen to her ‘Sorry’s’ and all the pathetic words I knew she would have said.  She asked something… something I surely didn’t want to talk about, but since it was out there I had to.

“Helena told me… I mean, she didn’t really say anything, but she just made me understand some things happened in New York, and…” my sigh stopped her. “I’m sorry, I just… I know I have no right”

“No, you know what? I’m gonna tell you” I clenched my teeth. I knew this was going to hurt her, make her feel like shit. I couldn’t help it to want her to feel bad… “I wanted to die, Tina”

She just looked at me, so I chuckled “Hard to believe, isn’t it? The almighty Bette Porter lost her control… she couldn’t control anything, anymore. She didn’t have anything, anymore. She just wanted to go away. She wanted to disappear. And what was the easy way out? To die, of course” I blurted out. It actually came out harsher than I intended it to.

We stared at each other for the longest three seconds of my life, the storm was raging on; we were moving in sync. I gave her time, she was digesting my words. I knew her so well, I could still read her: she always needed time to think and talk.

“How…” her voice hoarse. She cleared her voice, “I mean, how…” she just didn’t seem to be able to talk. But I knew what she wanted to ask.

“She found me on my apartment floor, passed out. I had tried to drink myself into oblivion that night, but alcohol alone didn’t seem to work so I took some pills…” and she didn’t need to know the rest.

I spent the last six years going from a woman to another; Helena was one of them. She was there when I needed warm flesh to clinch to, to keep me from falling at night, when everything became harder, when my eyes closed and images of me and Tina, my family, would stick out from the deepest corners of my mind and heart… a happy family haunting me until daylight. I became the shadow of myself. Forced to stop feeling. I wasn’t living, neither I was dead. Like a primitive animal I only found trust in my own instincts.

* * *

 

“Do you like Christmas?” Angelica’s voice interrupted the silence the three of us had been in for I don’t know how long. It was an odd question I thought.

“Not really” I replied. I felt a little uneasy as Tina was staring at us, clearly curios about what Angie was up to.

“See!!!” she suddenly yelled, pointing at me while she looked at Tina “She’s like the Grinch!!”

“What?” Tina laughed.

“She’s like the Grinch. You know, Dr. Seuss’ story!”

“Oh, baby the Grinch was green… and ugly, and…” I heard Tina say, then she stopped and blushed. Was that a way to tell Angelica I was beautiful and couldn’t possibly be the Grinch?

“I know silly” Angelica chuckled “Mama B is more beautiful, of course”

I couldn’t help but smile. She could cut through the thickest wall.

“What I was trying to say is that she doesn’t like Christmas and her heart must be two sizes too small” she looked at me; her deep brown eyes lingering on mine “someone must have hurt you a lot. This is what happens to the Grinch, too. He’s not evil, he’s just hurt”

I felt like I was going to cry at any moment. Something linked her to me. I still couldn’t understand why. Something I will learn some years later.

She crawled up on my knees and leaned her head against my chest “I can hear it. It’s beating, but it’s like he’s tired of feeling” then, with a start, she looked up at me “Wow! I just felt a stronger beat!”

I felt it, too.