“That is so untrue.”

“That’s not what I felt.  Okay, okay…for example, when I found out I was pregnant…”

“And you told every one of our friends and my sister before telling me,” Bette interrupted, still a bit miffed about it.

“Do you want to know why?”  Tina’s voice rose in frustration.  “You knew I wanted to take the home pregnancy test, but you had to go to work.  You didn’t go get the test, Alice brought it over for me.  Bette, it was like my first pee of the morning.  You could have waited twenty minutes, but you didn’t.”  Tina finished with more than a hint of censure in her tone, “You could have waited, but you had pressing things at the CAC.  I guess that would be Candace”

“No,” Bette said quickly.  “Trying to find an exhibition.”

“Anyway, Alice was there with me.  I was in the kitchen reading and she’s the one who brought the results to me.  Immediately after that, your sister walked in.  Alice and I were standing there, jumping for joy, laughing, so happy.  What was I suppose to do, tell Kit that this wonderful news wasn’t her business?  I shared the moment with Alice and then Kit.  Jesus, do you remember what your response was that morning when I called you?”

Bette thought for a few moments, but she recalled nothing.  “No.”

“I asked you to come home on time for dinner; that I’d make something special, that I’d take care of you, and you were rushing me off the phone and said that you couldn’t be counted on, you’d try, but not to count on it.  That’s it, Bette.  I stopped being able to count on you.  Your work, your shows, your everything was more important than us.”

“Everything I was doing was for us.  Everything.  I took the job at the CAC, so we could raise a family together.”

“And you slept with Candace so we could…what?”

“There is no excuse for what I did–none at all, Tina.  You know how I feel about that sort of thing.  All I know is that something sort of snapped in me.  The pressure of the show, of knowing that I wasn’t making you happy, of losing the baby just boiled over and…  *****, I have been trying to explain it to myself.  I can’t.  I’m miserable about it.  I needed to just forget about all my troubles, lose myself for a little while and I did that… in such a stupid way.”  Bette rubbed her forehead absently and then twirled a curl around her finger.  She hesitated, asking herself if she really wanted to share everything with Tina.  She decided that opening up to her might help them both to heal.  “I’m wondering if…if I had a nervous breakdown.”  This wasn’t a line Bette was feeding Tina, she had actually speculated that it might be an explanation for her behavior.  She hadn’t discussed it with Suzanne, but it was on her mind.  Something had to account for her to stray so far off the course she had laid out for herself.