Bette and Tina’s

——Andy——

I sat outside and debated whether to go in. it was then that I saw another car pull up. This one into Bette’s driveway. I watched as Shane and a woman I did not know got out then jumped out of my car and ran over to them as I realised the person they were supporting between them was my wife. I got to the door as they were sitting her on a sofa and holding a coffee cup for her to drink from.

I looked around and my eyes met Peggy’s.

” I think it’s time you two tell your story. All of it. Both sides. If you don’t do it now then I don’t know if you ever will. And I know you don’ want to spend the rest of you lives in this state of purgatory. Telling the story may help you really start to heal.”

I looked at the woman who had been as close as I had come to a parent since I had left England eight years ago and she had taken me under her wing.

I nodded my head in consent and sat on a chair on the opposite side of the room to my slowly sobering wife. I had to check myself when Shane said she had to go check on Alice at the hospital and Rachel told her to say sorry. I would deal with that later. As Kit took the Kids to her car to give us space, while she said her goodbyes I locked eyes with my wife and asked her permission without word’s to tell her story, our story. The small motion of her head gave me her consent before she dropped her head to break eye contact.

As everyone sat in I prepared to speak I thought that if a screwed this up the telling of this part of our lives I may never get to look In those eyes again. We were so close to breaking after all this time that maybe this was our only chance to fix things.

I looked at Bette as I prepared to begin, I felt a kinship towards her a similar need to be strong and to provide strength and support for those we loved seemed to come from her, head drawn me to her. To look at Peggy was too painful, she was to close. And the kindness I saw in Tina’s eyes made my defences to weak and would break me before I could finish. As for Rachel, she would not look at me so as I took a deep breath and began it was the strong compassionate face of Bette Porter that I used as my Anchor to the present during my journey into the past.