The words were barely out of my mouth and Shane had bounded to her feet.  Her head bowed she mumbled her excuses.  “I, Tina, we didn’t, we were just, anyway I’ll just go” and with that she made her way back to her own side of the fence.

That left us looking at one another.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  Bette had turned away again.  Her head lowered, I could see her shoulders rise and fall as she took slow measured breaths.  The silence seemed loud between us.   I stood rooted to the same spot, words failing me, the chasm that existed between Bette and I over the last few months as wide as ever between us in this moment.  I struggled to regain the feeling of moments before that there was hope, that there was something to be salvaged.  I took some calming breaths myself trying to find words with which to begin.  My thoughts were interrupted.

“I can’t imagine what more you could really have to say to me.  I’m not sure I can stomach hearing it” I was surprised to find there was no real anger in her words, her tone was defeated, broken.  Perhaps without justification this made me angry, and so petulantly I reacted.

“Fine then, if it’s not even worth talking about to you maybe we should just leave it” I spat out as I turned on my heel and went back inside the house.  I can only presume the splash I heard was Bette kicking her foot in the water in what? Anger, frustration?   I don’t presume to know what motivates her to do anything anymore.

Angelica was still sleeping,  so I made my way to the kitchen intent on trying to occupy myself feeling like I was out of place in my own home.  I tried to remember if before in the good times, when we were happy together, on the seldom occasions that we did row if I felt so awkward sharing the space with her when we weren’t getting along.  I smiled briefly as I remembered that in the early days any arguments we had were usually pretty explosive, one of us would storm out and by the time we returned both of us would be remorseful and the make-up sex would be imminent.  This quiet hostility, the protracted anger, the passive aggressive behaviour only really began just before it all started to fall apart and even then it was never like it is now.  It never felt so insurmountable, well not to me it didn’t but then I wasn’t the one who sought solace in the arms of a carpenter, maybe Bette felt differently.

Angrily I started chopping vegetables.  No real plan in mind as to what I was cooking but needing to be doing something.  Needing to feel like I had a function in this house, something which these days when Angelica was sleeping I struggled to feel.  Just thinking of Candace even briefly opened a raw wound, it exposed a pain that was there constantly gnawing at me and the only way I knew to make it seem less was to morph it into anger.  Anger towards Bette that this was where we ended up. 

She, the most private person I had ever known telling Shane the most intimate things about our relationship out in our back yard.  Me feeling like an imposter in my own home, filled with hurt and rage and confused by these feelings for men that continued to find their way into my mind.  Angry that my offer feeble though it may have been of an olive branch had been rejected.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should talk”

I hadn’t heard her come in but there was an openness about her that I hadn’t seen in a long time, an imploring look in her eye that stopped the defensive rebuke that was building in my throat.  I paused and drew breath contemplating my response.