So Bette called Tina and told her exactly that, plus she told her that she would be bringing Angelica back within the hour.

Knowing it was foggy up there I was worried sick that Bette had to backtrack her way up to Whistler. She kept her cell open until we lost contact again. She kept calling me back with in and out communication problems until I knew she was safely back at the Fairmont.

No surprise, she received a very cold reception from Tina, who simply answered the door herself and snatched the baby away from her, with disgust and warnings She told Bette that if she ever took Angelica again without permission, she would call the police and press charges against her.

When Bette got back to her room, she called me from the telephone there. She was crying again and I did my best to calm her down so she could get some sleep. I suggested she forget about her return accommodations and book a flight to John Wayne Airport in Orange County as soon as possible so that I could pick her up. That way she would not have to run into Henry and Tina again and torture herself by seeing the baby she temporarily could not have. She agreed.

I was so wound up when I went back to bed that there was no sleep in me.

Howie was dead to the world, so I did not have to deal with why Bette called.

I did explain it briefly to him over breakfast this morning. He called it, “attempted kidnapping” and said she was lucky she did not get into some serious trouble with the law and that it probably would, in the future come back to bite her in the ass even though Tina did not know what she had in mind. The fact was that it was not Bette’s night to have the baby and she took her anyway.

Bette finally called me around noon and said she would fly into John Wayne Airport at 8 p.m. Meanwhile she said she had not seen hide nor hair of Tina but that their other friends were out on the slopes, intending to leave the next day.

I told her I would be at the baggage claim center to pick her up. It had only been a few weeks since I saw her last but it would be different now She had tried so hard and for so long, to get Tina back, back like it used to be for them when they were so close and so much in love, but nothing worked. Sure, Bette was wrong to have had that affair with Candace but she paid for it many times over with grief and humility. Then she pocketed her pride even more, by changing her entire personality, her complete persona to get Tina back. Instead of Tina responding, little by little she drove a wedge between them. She just kept chipping away so that now they were broken in two separate pieces.

All I know, as I stood waiting for her at the airport was that I loved Bette Porter before Tina, during Tina and now, I wondered what was going to happen to us, after Tina?