Chiaroscuro

Chapter 29

Tina moved down the hill toward the house, breathing in the night air to clear her head. She heard Bette close and bolt the studio doors and follow her down the path.

“Tina?”

Tina turned to see Bette standing uphill from her, the moonlight casting her face in shadow, the unlit torch hanging loosely from her hand.  She walked back toward her and stopped when Bette seemed to take a step back. 

“I don’t think I can drive you back just yet. I’m…”  Bette looked anywhere but at Tina’s face.

“Bette, you’re shaking. You need to eat something—how long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

“I don’t know. This morning?”  She looked up at Tina and spat out, “I had expected to eat dinner but tonight didn’t exactly turn out…”

“I know. Let me make you something to eat.”  Tina wanted desperately to reach her hand out to her but knew that the gesture would just make Bette move further away.  Instead, she turned and walked to the house knowing that Bette had no choice but to follow.

Tina entered the kitchen and Bette found her staring into the refrigerator. “You don’t have to…”  Tina held her hand up to stop her voice and leaned in to pull out a carton of eggs, butter and some cheese. 

“Do you have coffee?”

“Yes.”

“Make some while I make you an omelet.”  She opened the cabinets and drawers to find a bowl and utensils.  Bette opened a jar of coffee, measured out the whole beans and carefully ground them for the drip pot.  She poured the water from a plastic jug under the table.

“Do you have any bread?”  Bette finished with the coffee maker and moved behind Tina to take a package of bread out of the freezer and began to move back to the stove, bumping into Tina who had begun to melt butter in a pan on the stove top.  Bette froze at the contact.

“It’s OK Bette.”

“Um, the bread has to go in the oven.”

Tina shifted over to allow Bette to light the oven and put the bread in to toast; as Bette rose up, Tina smiled at her and turned back to whip the eggs into the pan. 

Once Tina finished putting the omelet and toast on a plate that Bette handed her, she told Bette to sit down at the table and found two cups for the coffee.

Bette was suddenly famished and ate quickly while Tina sipped her coffee.

“Bette?  Can I ask you something?”

Bette looked up at Tina, suddenly nervous. 

“Why haven’t you painted before this?”

“It’s so complicated, Tina, I’m not sure I am up for discussing it right now.”

Tina had watched the walls come up as soon as Bette had recognized her in the restaurant that evening and knew better than to push her.

“Bette, would you prefer that I not come tomorrow night?”

“That’s your decision, Tina. I didn’t want you to be surprised or embarrassed if you decided to come.  Actually, I never intended to show the smaller one.  There are others in the show—not as—um, personal---but not for sale. I can take them down if you would prefer.”

“What did you once tell me?  Art forgives?  I think it was the first time you showed me a Mapplethorpe photograph—you know, the one with the whip?—and I was rather shocked at the image—you remember? And you told me that.”

Bette stared at Tina. “You remember that?”

“I remember everything, Bette.”

“So are you saying that I should keep the smaller one in the show?”

“You are the artist—it’s your decision. I am not ashamed of the feelings that you captured so…eloquently.”

“I should drive you back to the inn now.”

“Bette—it’s very late and I’m not sure that you should drive. I was hoping we could talk some more.”

“Not tonight, Tina.  I can take you back—I’m fine and it’s less than fifteen minutes from here. Besides, there’s no place here for you to sleep.” 

“I know I’ve shocked you by showing up like this, Bette.  Do you think that we can talk about things after the show?”

“Tina—you know what? You’re right. I am in shock.”  She walked over to the door and then turned back to Tina.  “I’m glad that you are finally willing to acknowledge that I am Angelica’s mother and I will do anything—anything!--that I can to work out any arrangement that will allow me to see my daughter. But I’ve lost six months, Tina—not just six months in my life—but six months in the short life of my child.  She won’t even know who I am, Tina!  So, please forgive me—but I am a little short on gratitude right now.”  The decibel level of her voice was considerably raised as she finished and she felt her heart pounding in her ears.  “And frankly, I am not interested in anything else.  I don’t care about anything else, Tina. It just doesn’t matter anymore. All that matters now is Angelica. So, the answer is no—no I don’t want to talk about anything after the show or anytime else unless it’s about my daughter.”

Bette strode out to the car. 

Tina raced out the door after her.  “No!  Do not make speeches and walk away from me! I am not going to do that anymore.”

Bette turned and stared at her as she continued.

“We need to talk—we should have talked a long time ago. Maybe if we had…”  Tina took a deep breath.  “And no matter where we go from here, Bette, we are going to at least have enough respect for each other as Angelica’s co-parents to talk honestly to each other. Because that’s what we want to teach her, right?  We have both been so wrong about so many things, Bette.  But even more important than that—no matter what happens from now on, you and I are going to have a relationship for the rest of our lives because of the choice we made to have a child together. So we have to know that we are going to be honest with each other.”

Bette walked slowly back toward Tina, shaking her head slowly, suddenly recognizing how quickly she had reverted to her old behavior.  She wasn’t going to run away anymore—wasn’t that one of her commitments to herself?  But that was before she was faced with this woman—the one who had held her heart in the palm of her hand and had crushed it.  The one who still took her breath away.