“Hello, Bette,” said Tina’s mother.  “It’s good to hear your voice.  How are you this evening?”

            “I’m very well, thank you, Rose,” Bette said politely, smiling at Tina.  “How are you?”

            “Between you and me, I’m nervous as *****,” Mrs. Kennard replied and Bette laughed out loud.  Tina’s eyes widened.  She knew her mother was a lot of things, but funny wasn’t one of them.  “May I speak to Tina?”       

            “Of course, she has been waiting for your call,” Bette answered.  “Here she is.”  Bette handed the phone to Tina and replaced her on the floor with Angelica as Tina stood and made her way to the bedroom.

            “Hi, mom,” Tina said tentatively, closing the door to the bedroom behind herself.

            “Tina,” Rose said and the sound of her own name from her mother’s mouth was the saddest and most comforting thing Tina had ever heard.  There was a moment of silence as they got used to being on the phone with each other, a concept neither woman had contemplated until that morning.  Truthfully, Rose had never expected Caroline to give Tina the phone.  She didn’t know what made her try to call.  She didn’t know how she found the right words to convince her younger daughter that she wouldn’t hurt Tina.  She didn’t know where her polite and even jovial rapport with Bette was coming from.  And most importantly, “I don’t know what to say.”

            Tina smiled.  “How was your day mom?”

            “Good, spent some time with your sister-in-law and the kids,” Rose sighed.  “How was yours?”

            “I have something to tell you, mom.”  Way to cannonball into the deep end of the pool, Tina thought to herself.

            “Ok,” Rose said, confused.

            “This is a little complicated so I need you to hear me out before you say anything and don’t ask me questions until I’m done.”  Tina’s voice was calm and even despite the fact that her heart was racing out of control.

            “Ok,” her mother repeated.

            “You know Bette is bi-racial.”  Tina had no idea if her mother knew that, but she knew if she told her mother she knew her mother would not argue about it.  “Her mother is white and her father was black.  Anyway, Bette and I decided that we wanted to have a family.  Bette and I decided to have a child and to better reflect us as a family we thought if I was to have the baby we would use an African American donor.”  There was dead silence on the other end of the phone.  Tina couldn’t hear a sound.  She thought the connection had dropped.  “Mom?”