‘I’m looking through the job postings.’

‘You have a job, at the center.’

‘I need a job that pays real money Bette.  I don’t make enough to support myself much less a child.’

Bette new she couldn’t drive and have this conversation so she quickly looked around and spotted a small park.  She pulled over and stopped the car.

‘Why are you stopping here?’

Bette got out, walked around and opened Tina’s door and reached for her hand.

‘Come with me please.’

She led them to an out of the way bench and motioned for Tina to sit.

‘You love working at the center T.’

‘I’m just trying to be realistic Bette.’

‘I know we said we would discuss finances later, but I think we need to have part of that discussion now.’

‘All right.’

‘I’m not sure right now is your best time to look for a job.  It may be difficult to find someone willing to hire you knowing you’ll be taking maternity leave soon.’

‘I may have to take a shorter leave than I’d wanted.’

‘I have an idea, will you hear me out?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ve already agreed to sign over the house and pay child support, so what if I continue to pay our living expenses since I’ll be at the house at least until you have the baby.  That way you can stay at the center until you’re ready to go on maternity leave.  If you decide things aren’t working and you want me to leave we’ll settle our finances and I’ll continue to pay the expenses for say six months.  That should give you time to find a job.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I know you think I’m trying to control things but I’m not.  I know you love the center and I’d hate to see you give it up.  If things work out and we get back together you wouldn’t need to leave.  I promise we will make whatever changes to our finances that you want.’

‘I don’t want you to resent doing this if things don’t work out between us.’

‘I would never resent taking care of you and our daughter.’

‘All right, I’d like to get things resolved financially as soon as possible, I don’t want it to come between us.’

‘I’ll call Bert and see when he can see us.  Do your settlement papers divide things the way you want?  We can just ask him to make the name changes and we can go in and sign the papers.’

‘You should look at the papers when we get home and see if you want to make any changes.’

‘I’m sure everything is fine.’

‘I’d like for you to go through them.’

‘I will.  You ready to go by Alice‘s?’

‘Sure.’

Tina took Bette’s hand and they started back to the car.

‘Bette?  Thanks.’

That one small gesture, one simple word was all Bette needed to keep that little bit of hope alive.