"Yeah," she said, sniffling a bit.

"Then why are you crying?"

"I’ve never been away from my baby for this long."

"It’ll be ok, he’ll be back before you know it," I said turning her towards me, "let’s go home."

For the next week we worked on the house. She was bringing in her’s and Jackson’s things and I was making room them. Cramming her things in my closet, and the kitchen was proving to be quite a feat for us.

"This isn’t going to work," I said, sitting on the bed, staring at all the boxes, piles of clothes, shoes, appliances and small furniture.

"Sure it will, we can," Tina said, "umm, I can always live with less shoes.."

"No, no, I want you to have everything, we just need a bigger room."

"Baby, I don’t wanna move again! We just ordered all of Jackson’s furniture, we’re about to paint the walls. I’m tired of packing and unpacking!"

"You’re so cute when you whine," I said and smiled, "and I don’t wanna move."

"Then what are you suggesting?"

"A renovation."

"What?"

"I’ve been thinking about it ever since I bought the house that the master needs to be bigger. So I thought adding a second story would be great."

"No, Bette that’s insane!"

"I don’t have to do it now, just eventually I’d like to have a bigger master, and a bigger bathroom."

"Babe, let’s just get settled and then later we can revisit the renovation."

As we continued to work we laughed at our silly attempt at trying to fit things in the closet and the drawers of my dresser. I had a dresser set for Tina and an armoire coming as well, so we fit things as best as we could then we stopped and got ready for dinner and a night at The Planet.

We went to a nice restaurant on the beach and laughed and talked. We talked as if we hadn’t talked in days. She was nervous to start school again. She wasn’t sure if she was ready but I reassured her she was. We played footsie under the table and caressed each other’s hands, clearly the wine was doing it’s job. As I paid the bill, Tina drinks the rest of her wine and checks her phone. Eric sent her a picture of Jackson and his first big catch. His little smile was so bright at the capture of his first fish. We both cooed over the picture and then headed to The Planet where we met up with the rest of the girls.