A week later, they were set to move. 

“Still, it’s wrong.” Helena was nothing if not principled—and rather naïve—or at least she was when the shoe was on the other foot, as it had been for over two years. “I don’t abide by this system, but I also don’t think that the Peabody estate is much better. I used to, I mean I used to think we were better, but what the fuck do a few tax write offs matter? We aren’t changing the world by evading our taxes however legal it might be…” She made up for her chatter by unfolding boxes and re-taping their sides. Bette nodded, agreeing with her but also moving into that silent mode she preferred while doing manual labor.

“Yeah, well, the whole world is wrong, isn’t it?” Bette remembered as she often did, the stories passed down through her father’s line, the struggles of her ancestors two hundred years in the American south, and she dismissed, as she often did in the heartbeat it took for those stories to pass through her psyche, the notion that it could all be won back with one or two ‘right’ moves by her or anybody she knew. All the wrong moves had been made for so long, who knew how many right ones it would take to rectify such heaps of injustice? “Take the money and run.” Bette joked, throwing an empty box to her lover. Helena glared at her for a moment, letting the cardboard fall at her feet. “You can’t fix the Peabody legacy by throwing the money away.” Bette reasoned. “Who will you give it to? It isn’t enough anyway.”

“You’re not making any sense.” Helena fumed.

“Neither are you.” Bette smiled sweetly and erased the scowl in her girlfriend’s eyes. Helena smiled back and they returned to their packing.

Bette’s house back in Los Angeles was being rented out to Max, who wanted space from Jenny and felt it in his budget to take on a larger space.  Bette had considered selling the home, but the sheer amount of work that had gone into its backyard alone made her reconsider. The move to a larger home in England would provide for their comfort, for a base in a country they were beginning to call home, but it would not replace the sunny California coast which they all still missed.  Already, Alice had made at least three trips back and forth with Shane, and Tina was itching to bring Angelica for a visit there. Though, of their small group, Tina seemed strangely subdued about the prospects of moving back permanently. Bette and Helena were happy to keep residence in two countries, but their curiosity was peaked by the blonde’s reluctance.