Bette and Sterling looked at each other and tried not to laugh.

“That was a good story, Jo.” Sterling said.

“Again?” The girl asked.

“No, no, I understand.” He told her and she just shrugged her shoulders.

“Okay.” She said.

They finished eating and then Sterling said he would do the dishes. Jolene said she had to finish her drawing and Bette just sat on the sofa, reading a magazine but she couldn’t stop hearing the blonde teacher’s voice in her head. Tina. Tina. Tina. Kept going through her head. Her head was filled with pictures and slightly moving images of the blonde. Beautiful. I her head, she zoomed in on every detail of the face she had thought about the whole day.

Sterling turned the TV on, which made Bette jump. Sterling looked at her and chuckled before looking back at the TV. Bette smiled and thought about how much she loved her children.

She remembered the day Sterling was born, she had known before his birth that there would be something wrong with his lip but when he was born, all she could think of was how beautiful he was. But it was also a sad day. The night before Sterling was born, his father, James Madden, was hit by a car when he was driving home with his bike. He had died instantly. When she heard, she had cried for hours and the same evening her water broke. She panicked.

She was 19, lived alone in an apartment and had absolutely no one to go to. She was still going to school while James made a (small) living, he was an electrician. They had decided to move in together because James didn’t have any parents and her father was always traveling and her mom had left when she was only 5. The only people they had in their lives, was each other. Unwillingly and unplanned, Bette had become pregnant. To pay for everything that was needed to have and care for a baby in a normal way, James did extra hours, sometimes up to 18 a day to have enough money to go to doctor’s appointments.

When they found out that their son would have a facial deviation, James did everything possible to provide the money to get Sterling all the medical care that he needed.