Tina’s lips rose into a shallow wincing grin, Bette noticed it right away. “Ok.”

“If you don’t want to talk, you don’t have to, I just… can’t stop wondering about a few things.”

“No, no, no it’s not that I don’t want to talk, you should have every fear allayed.” Tina remembered from her therapy sessions that she needed to allow Bette to be open with her just as she would try and be open with her. “But it’s still very surreal for me to try and talk to you about Rick, or his home, or even Trish and Aaron for that matter.”

“Why is that? You said that they were your family.”

“They are, they really are, but surely you can see why it’s sometimes so difficult for me to bring them up to you.”

Bette understood where Tina was coming from, but for her to push so hard for Bette to meet them and now put herself into a difficult situation where she is all of sudden nervous about bringing them up around her is a complete contradiction to the purpose of Tina including her in this trip. Bette’s brow creased, she was becoming increasingly confused with Tina’s approach to this potentially calamitous trip she was asking her to go along with.

“I mean try to understand, these people were more than my… in-laws.” Tina didn’t want to call him that but what other title could she give him. “As much as Trish mothers me and takes my needs under consideration the same way she would a child of her own, that doesn’t change the fact that these are Rick’s parents. That is their home. You know I love you and everything we have here is what I need in my life, but its here.” Tina hoped she was conveying what she meant without seeming cold or unfeeling. “Your life, my life, our world, our friends are all here. Trish and Aaron are a world away from us, that reality only exist through phone calls and visits to Montana. But with you coming with me, I’m bringing our world to them. I would hate to think that by us staying in his room we’re just throwing it in their faces.”