It was different walking back. The atmosphere changed and both were thinking the same thing. This was going to be their first meal without Tina, without mom. So neither spoke…..Bette understood and Angelica understood. If talk came it wouldn’t be possible,…this wouldn’t be possible. So Bette walked back to the house holding the bags filled with unhealthy food they were about to eat….without Tina. Maybe it will be fatal, maybe when she ate her first morsel with Tina dead it would lodge in her throat. Maybe it will choke her so her veins would fill with bursting blood maybe her lips would turn blue maybe her lungs would collapse and she herself would die. Then….she would be able to join Tina.  But no……she couldn’t do that. Her emotions ached for death but her mind screamed no. She had to live. In fact for the rest of her living life Bette would have to live carefully, she had to watch herself. Because Bette had to live for Angelica. She could not let herself shrivel adn go away…Angelica would be an orphan. Tina would never forgive Bette.  And Angelica was a part of Tina anyway…literally…not in the way like Bette…but really a part of Angie. Bette glanced at Angelica and with her free hand slipped a lock of her hair over those ear, her skin was a beautiful bronze.

 The table was never more bare. So Bette filled it. With a large heated Shepard’s pie and cups of juice, and flowers picked from the garden. Angelica sat on the right side of the table by Bette who was at the head….Tina’s chair and place looked ominously empty. So Bette stabbed that ***** pie and gave Angie a piece….her cup with juice. For a few minutes noting was done or said except the sounds of eating. Bette felt her head get light with tired thought, after eating she knew her body would make her sleep whether she wanted to or not. It was Angelica who spoke first……..”did mom…did mom make a will?”   Bette stabbed her pie piece again, steady yourself girl…”yes she did, and tommorrow we are going to go to her lawyer and do all that legal stuff, your aunts are coming too so we have to ready the house, we have to organize a lot of things, we have to do things for your mom things she wanted to be done ok?”   Angelica nodded her head…even though it wasn’t natural she wanted to have died before her mom. This wasn’t right. “and in a couple months i’ll be doing grade 8 again right?”   “that’s right, but during the time between now and then i want you to take some classes…like painting or something, to get your mind of things you know?”   “ok”   Bette got up and took the plates into the kitchen, she put them in the sink adn took out the ice cream from the feezer…now was a good time for comfort food. Angelica came into the kitchen and got out two spoons. For the next fifteen minutes nobody said anything. Instead with their spoons Bette and Angelica ate ice cream from the carton, standing by the counter. It was pitiful, full of pathos.

 After Angelica said goodnight and went back to bed Bette sat back down. At the table. She wiped the table with her hand, feeling the varnished surface. Then looking up Bette saw Tina’s empty place….her chair bare. And she felt tears pour down her face…. and this time Bette didn’t wipe them away.