She refocused on George, returning his sympathetic look. “Thanks for asking. She’s been undergoing a pretty aggressive treatment regime. But I think she’ll be taking a breather from the treatments later this week. And she said it would be ok, then, to come visit, as she would have recovered from the nausea induced by all that medication and treatments.”

Tina smiled ruefully, “The funny thing is, with all of the bad stuff that’s happened, between her falling ill, Bette getting slammed by that semi, and Paul nearly losing everything, I think my mom and Paul were just jolted.”

She shook her head, “Paul is so solicitous of her now, and manages everything: their house, the nurses, deals with the doctors, even has a regular grocery service handle their groceries.”

“My mom is literally a queen, and doesn’t need to worry about anything.”

George and Kate smiled, holding hands as they listened to Tina.

“Plus he’s always asking about Bette. And Angelica. Asking when they can come visit.”

“He sent Bette flowers every week while she was rehabbing, calling and talking to her every other day. And sent self-help books, which Bette hates, but politely thanked him for, anyway. Then he researched the perfumery in Paris where she orders her custom-made perfume from, after he overheard her in the background mention to me one day that she was running low on it. Before anyone realized what he was up to, he had arranged for a full line of body butter, lotion, candles, bath salts, etc, made with the same scent to be made for her, and had them shipped over, express delivery.”

She laughed lightly, “Bette had to call them to ask them to stop shipping things for the next six months because she’d run out of room in the bathroom to store everything.”

Kate laughed, “What?”

“Yeah,” Tina shook her head, “I think Paul had them on a monthly delivery schedule.”

George grinned, “Well, I don’t blame him. That perfume is perfect on Bette.”

Kate swatted his arm. What do I do? she mouthed to Tina, who gave her a playful shrug.

“I’m just saying the truth!” he protested, then gave Kate a quick kiss. “Aren’t I Tina?”

“Yes you are, George.”

Later that evening, after checking in on Angelica, Tina sat up in bed, tapping out on her tablet the pros and cons of her leaving her job.   She’d been so engrossed on the task that she hadn’t noticed the time.