Bette sighed and smile softly at her young friend. "I wish you were the judge," she replied.

"I wish I was too."

Bette finished. "Today, I told Joyce that I’m not going to pursue custody at all at this point. I love Angie more than I ever loved anything else. But I don’t want her to pay the price for our bickering. She’s not property and her future should not be in the hands of a judge who doesn’t even know her. Angie is better off without the fighting and the feuding and the back and forth."

"Are you sure about that? She adores you ,B."

Bette’s insides warmed at this simple sentence. She smiled broadly, her eyes brimming with tears. "I know. But I love my boo too much to hurt her. I will work with Tina when she stops wanting to fucking chop off my head. She’s too angry for compromise right now. She’s blinded by heteroville. One day, she’ll see me again."

Shane gave her friend a long look. "You know what you’re doing. I trust that. I can always trust that. You’ll call me if you ever need me?"

"I will."

"Good. I feel like the whole damn world changed. Did I miss anything else?" asked Shane.

Bette’s smile faltered. "I’ve heard though the grapevine that Helena was disinherited by Peggy."

"People still do that?" asked Shane.

"Apparently. And apparently she’s now penniless."

"What happened there? Why the sudden disinheritance?"

Bette gave her friend a soft smile, softening her tone to deliver a most sobering message. "Shane, it was the wedding. Helena went way too far with her spending and Peggy feels she’s irresponsible. I don’t know how penniless Helena actually is. Her penniless could still be well-to-do by average standards. But I do know, there’s trouble on the horizon."

“What? Helena lost all her money because of me?” asked Shane.

The older woman swallowed thickly and shrugged.

Shane slumped down her chair, sighing deeply under the weight of wrongs her panic attack in Whistler had created. "Shit. And I didn’t even get married," she mumbled.

"Shane, you can’t take all the blame. Helena was reckless with her spending before your wedding came along. I guess this was just the final straw. But it wasn’t the only straw.”

Shane bolted upright, running a hand through her dark, tousled locks."I gotta go."

Bette’s eyes were wide with surprise. She liked talking to Shane. There was something relaxing and judgment-less about being in Shane’s presence and she’d just begun to enjoy their gentle rapport. "Where are you going?"

"I don’t know. But I gotta fix this. Make it right," she said, her crisp blue eyes filled with intensity. More intensity than Bette had ever seen.

The older woman eyed her young friend curiously. "What are you going to do?"

"Something big. Something huge. Will you be okay?"

Bette replied. "I’ll be fine. Call me when you can?"

Shane nodded, her mind now elsewhere as she headed over to her own backyard, thoughts and plans coming to life as she moved.

Bette watched her friend walk away, wondering where she and Tina would be if someone had intervened in her life as she had with Shane.