“When you start to eat Bette, you can start your questions.”

“Oh, okay.” She ate almost her whole meal and then retrieved of her pocket her notes. “I was reading about the transplant. And I see some statistics I want to discuss”

“Bette, you know statistics work with averages. She can’t predict individual behavior just to give us some idea what it’s most probable.”

“So…”

“What the time of evolution of Tina’s condition compared with the average tells you?”

“That she didn’t fit on average. She was on the worst edge.”

“Yes, so why do you want discuss statistics?”

“Okay. Let’s move to the next topic. I was reading about the options of transplants”

“Bette, I won’t discuss transplants with you until it becomes an option.”

“I want to be prepared. I always like to be a step forward.”

“That’s not the way the things works here. With terminal patients we leave a day each time. One battle each time. We can’t work with unreal expectations.”

“I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can. Remember when you talked about the stages of terminal patients, denial, anger”

Bette just nodded.

“Sometimes the relatives goes trough the same phases. You could benefit with the help of a support group.”

“I hate therapy.”

“We don’t have only therapists. We have people of different religions, social workers and volunteers. People who faced the same problem you have.”

Now Bette was starting to get annoyed. “Look, if you are talking about anger, that incident in her office that day was just because Caroline really pissed me of. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I was talking about your denial.”

“Which denial? I’m here all the time with Tina. I just leave for two or three hours to see our daughter.”

“Isn’t denial to stay all the time on the computer? Do you think you can find something I don’t know already? Or to try to control every step of her treatment? When will you start to act like someone is facing a big lost in her life? Have you talked with Tina? Have you touched her? Have you cried?”

“Can you change the topic? I will think about it. I promise.”

“I admire your determination, Bette. I really do. I was wondering how someone so obstinate, who clearly is in love with her wife, couldn’t save her marriage.”

“I also wondered that sometimes.”

They ended their meal and Bette returned to the room. She woke up with some kind of commotion in the room. And the first sound her mind could process was a weak and familiar whisper “Bette”