Bette bought a padlock at the seven-eleven, the one that was open all night. It was in the wee hours and Bette woke up on the couch after the massive “cleaning” she had
done earlier. Angelica was sleeping in her room, Bette checked in there…she was doing a lot of checking. It seemed like keeping busy would save her from drowning, she had not
really cried properly yet. It felt like a….betrayel to cry, like if she cried it would confirm that Tina was gone forever. Bette didn’t want that, but she also couldn’t stand to walk a step
anywhere in her house and be constantly reminded of the woman who completed her. So she bought the damn padlock and quietly came back home, very quietly as to not disturb
her daughter. Bette peeled  off the combo number and put it in the bathroom mirror on the top shelf. Then walking to the spare room she opened it and came in, she put the padlock
on the floor and went over to the pile. Lucky for her this room had the kind of lock like a shed, so it easily could hold a lock…in fact it was going to be turned into a kind of in-house shed
for various garden tools, bleach, blah blah blah. At the pile Bette sat down and for the next half hour was reminded why she fell in love with Tina. There were a suprising number of little
notepads that Bette had never before noticed, they were covered in Tina’s penciled sketches. THere was even a very small sketchbook, filled with T’s drawings…..she drew animals,
hands, flowers…Bette recognized the garden in one. Why didn’t she ever tell Bette about them? Was she afraid of criticsism? Under a pile of clothes Bette took the brush with strands
of T’s golden hair…..she picked them out one by one, held them together into a ball and strooked her cheek with it. Bette’s hand found photographs of Tina, Tina with Bette, Tina with
Angelica, all together…..she touched the glass. Bette suddenly felt disgusted by the glass….a barrier….so she broke it and took the hpotograph itself, she touched it, she smelled it..she
swore. A piece of glass embedded itself in her thumb pad. Ignoring it Bette left the pile and walked over to the door, opening it and turning around she gazed at her lover’s things, the
traces of her. Bette closed the door and locked it.