“We’ll talk about it more at home okay?”

“Okay.”

“Angel, where are you?”

“In the hallway.”

“In the hallway? Shouldn’t you be…?”

“Mom Jessica is waiting.”

Bette’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Bye Mom.”

“Be a good girl.”

“I will Mom.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Angelica hung up and happily jumped down from the chair, smiling at Jessica.  Bette hung up and confusedly looked down at the phone, smiling to herself.

 “Week two and she already has a friend. She hung up on me to go talk to her friend Jessica.”

James laughed at Bette’s look of surprise. “Of course she has friends. She’s a Porter. By the end of the month she’ll have half the school either fawning at her feet or eating out of the palm of her hands.”

Bette laughed and leaned back into her chair, her face completely free of tension, sowing she was just happy Angelica was okay. She quickly got over the fact that her daughter wanted to go to her friend and she smiled as she looked at James just before Angelica’ pertinent reason for calling came back to her. “She wanted to know what being mixed meant.”

“Yeah. I heard.” James smiled.

“We’ve talked about it before, but apparently she forgot.”

“She may have a short attention span when it comes to things like that. And I noticed you didn’t go into details.”

“Details?” Bette shrugged. “I didn’t feel the need to.” She shook her head. “I never really feel the need to muddle Angelica’s little mind. I don’t want to burden Angelica with all that, all those kinds of social, adult issues.”

James tentatively sat as he sensed his boss was initializing conversation. He loyally nodded in agreement and smiled.

“I mean, what purpose does it serve explaining to a six year old that some people are racist, or that some people can’t marry who they want to marry? She’s a child and she has a lot of time.”

 To each his own but I want my daughter to be a child. I want her to enjoy her innocence and watch her live and treasure her childhood for a very long time. I will leave her to think everyone is equal and let her live in her little cushiony bubble of innocence for a long long time.”

“Right.”

“Of course I plan to get to her before reality burst her bubble and tell her that this is one fucked up world.”

 “You’re right.”

Bette sat up and straightened in her chair as her eyebrows raised at him and her smirk says of course I’m right. I know I am.