Tina had nothing else to say to that. Alice struck her so deep that she had no real or structured arguments to combat her points. Instead of babbling and possibly stumbling onto a shaky point she stood and said, “I think we need some more coffee.”

Tina got up to the counter with her eyes down watching the ground pass by. “Tina.” She looked up at the soft calling of her name.

………………………………………………………………

Bette turned off her portable ultrasound machine and removed her stethoscope with a smile. Cilia smiled at her, finally feeling a bit of relief with Bette there checking on her.

“It looks good. Well your bleeding has stopped and the baby’s heart rate is very strong. The good thing here is that you were looking at a very low type of placenta previa. With plenty of bed rest and very little to no stress it has shifted itself back into a safe position.”

“The baby’s fine?”

“He looks very healthy.” Bette stood up and removed her gloves as she walked into the bathroom to throw them away and start her ritual of washing her hands and composing her attire back to its original state. After she’d washed her hands four times, she’d rolled her sleeves back down and removed her jacket from behind the door.  As she entered the room and began to pack away her equipment Cilia noticed a change in her.  She began to bob her head with each dip of Bette’s, she never noticed until the silence struck her. She looked up and over to Cilia whose piercing eyes never left hers.

“What is it?” Bette asked hoping that she hadn’t done something to harm or upset her patient/ friend.

“Where is she?” Bette let a breath as she dropped her shoulders back and gave a small shake to her head before she answered.

“In L.A. she didn’t want to come.”

“What happened?” she asked looking the way sadness covered Bette’s face and draped itself around her shoulders.

“I… made the mistake—I guess you could call it a mistake, I don’t really know what to call it right now. I forgot to tell Tina about you, Dom and I back in college.”