Sufficiently overwhelmed by her emotions, she felt a need to see her… her Tee. Reading from the piece of paper that Alice snuck to her past Kit, she dialed the number to her object of infatuation and undeniable affection. She waited anxiously for the voice she longed for but was quickly disappointed when the she was met with the answering machine.

“Hey, Tee… It’s Bette.” She paused thinking about the little nickname she just uttered, worried that she overstep some boundaries but proceeded anyway.

“Listen, I was just wondering if you’d like to… If you’d like to maybe meet up with me because we didn’t get to- talk the other day.” The words rolled out of her tongue naturally.

“I-uh just need to know something… Give me a call, Tee…” She added softly before hanging up. Hopefully Tina would agree to meet her and she would finally be able to…  ‘I love you’  Bette gasped at the words whispered from within her.

“Tina…” She continues to caress the picture of them together.

–

“Angelica Kennard Potter, you stop right there. Angie!” Tina screamed at the top of her lungs, warning her excited daughter to wait for her before running towards the sea. She was shocked when her little angel ran from the car onto the beach and headed to the deep waters of the ocean once she was released to the ground. That almost gave her a heart attack but as soon as she got a hold on her baby’s tiny hand and looked into her big brown eyes, Tina’s heart melted at the sight. Angelica was mastering the puppy dog eyes with honors at this point and it reminded her of Bette… She gripped the little hand tighter at the thought of her supposed other mother.

“Sowee… Angie wet?”

“No, baby. No swimming today. The water isn’t safe, okay?”

“Kay…” They continued to walk by the beach with their foot leaving prints on the wet sand. The beautiful girl hopped a little as she walked across a particularly muddy like section on the beach.

“Momma. Ice cream?” Angie looked up with her adorable eyes with her request, smiling ever so sweetly to get her way with her mother. Tina had to chuckle at Angie’s incomplete sentence. She was at the age where codes were used to express what she wants. Key words were used. Tina smiled thinking Bette would have corrected Angie very subtly by repeating her question to her baby properly. They would then laugh together at Angie’s recall of the sentence. It would have been…great.