Tina couldn’t laugh, but she exhaled heavily.

With some frustration, Bette felt her tears racing down her cheeks, and she let them fall. She needed her hand on Tina, to comfort her in this horrible time when all seemed lost. “Because I liked it.”

Tina sniffled, incapable of silencing herself completely. Her head was still turned.

“Remember …” Bette started, having to close her eyes as the tears welled up behind them, “… When we got the house?” When Tina turned to her and she saw that recognition, there was no hope of stopping the raw emotion. She took a deep breath so she wouldn’t stumble over her words. “Do you remember what I said to you?”

Tina shoulders shrugged as her head dropped and she cried heavier, like there was something physically weighing her down on the bed they used to share. She just nodded slowly, trying to keep as quiet as she could. The comforter was wet with her tears.

“The moment you walked in here … even as bare as it was when we first saw it …”

She could see how difficult it was for Tina to dry her tears with such a constant stream.

“That look on your face … you just had a sort of energy.” She took a moment to steady her shaky voice, tucking Tina’s hair behind her ear with care. “Like it became something new with you in it.”

Tina looked up then, into Bette’s eyes. She remembered. She nodded with a new wave of emotion rushing over her. “You said … ‘it’s ours’.”

“That lady thought I was crazy,” Bette whispered, a breath of laughter escaping as she wiped one of Tina’s tears away. “She thought I lost my mind to assume something like that. But you knew what I meant, didn’t you?”

Tina pushed herself up, and sat back on her feet, drying her eyes with her sleeve before she took a calming breath and looked down at Bette. It was hard to agree without bursting into tears all over again, but she gently nodded.

“It was made for you and me baby,” Bette smiled, still wiping her own tears aside so she could properly look at this woman before her. “And the other day … you brought that back to me.” She shifted to lie on her back, reaching out to hold Tina’s hand in her own. It felt softer than she remembered. “You made this house a home all over again.”