Reba was glad to be home. She was sleeping in the guest room every night, and Charlie wasn't speaking to her, but she got to her family. Susie was glowing, three months pregnant with a miracle no one could wait to meet, even though her situation wasn't ideal. Her mama and daddy were working harder than ever on the ranch, which reminded Reba that some things would never change. That was comforting, because everything seemed to be changing... even her relationship with Narvel, if it could be called that. He had stayed with her every night until the tour was over, except one night when they stopped in Texas and he had his son Brandon stay in his hotel room. She hadn't heard from him in the two weeks she had been back in Oklahoma, but that was expected. Charlie probably wouldn't have appreciated daily phone calls from his wife's new beau, and Reba wasn't sure if Narvel wanted to talk to her. Just before they had come home, they had fought through their first real disagreement...
***FLASHBACK, BITCHESSSSSSS!***
Reba woke up in Narvel's arms, as usual. Kissing his chest, she mumbled, "Good morning."
"Good morning, beautiful." He kissed her, stealing all the oxygen from her lungs as usual. "It's our last day."
"I know..." she looked down.
"Let's just stay in bed together all day. Maybe we can finally..." He looked at her, obviously hopeful.
"I don't know, Narvel. I love you, I do. And I want to make love to you. But I'm still married. It's so wrong that I let you sleep here everynight."
He sighed. "Reba, what is your problem? You keep teasing me, and driving me crazy. You know we want each other. You know we love each other. Is it really a marriage without love? I want to be with you so badly..."
"My problem? Narvel, this isn't high school. I don't have to put out to make some little boy happy."
"Are you saying that I'm being childish?"
"Yes!"
"Well maybe I'm not. Maybe it just bothers me that the woman I'm in love with won't make love to me, despite the fact that two months ago she was ready to give back in to her asshole husband when I was on the other side of the wall." He looked at her, obviously angry.
"Really? You are going to hold trying to fix my marriage against me? I didn't know you had some weird obsession with me then."
"Some weird obsession? Oh my god. I am in love with you. Sorry if I was the first one to fall in love with you." Narvel got up and walked out.
***
She knew she had been wrong to snap at him. But she was frustrated too. Sexually... mentally... even spiritually. Did God forgive adulterers? Was what she was doing technically adultery?
As she drove the curves of the mountian road leading to her parents' home, contemplating whether or not she would burn in hell for burning in love.
***
"Reberneller!" Her sister Alice came bounding down the porch steps to her car door, knocking on the window. Reba laughed, emerging only to be squeezed half to death by Alice's sudden embrace.
"Hello, Alice." She squeezed back. "Missed you."
"Have you seen the little miss? She's absolutely glowing!" Alice stepped back and smiled at Reba.
"I know. Two babies in under three years. I think she's crazy."
"Oh, Reba. When you give birth to your first baby you'll understand. Your life will never be the same. And you and Charlie will be more in love than ever."
"Alice..." Reba looked up at her big sister, holding back tears. "Charlie and I are done. I don't see any babies in my future."
Alice stepped closer, dropping her voice. "So the rumors are true? Oh, mama is gonna be devastated. Every one in town has been spreading that rumor about you getting caught en flagrante with some guy on your tour bus and mama has been telling them all you'd never do it."
"What? People are saying that? I wasn't in bed with anyone. Well, I was, but we weren't doing anything. God... don't tell mama yet. Maybe she won't say anything."
***
Reba sat at her mother's kitchen table, peeling potatoes with her sisters. "How's that parasite treatin' ya, Susie?"
Susie had gotten used to Reba and Alice's teasing over the years. "Just fine. Your uterus gettin' even dustier these days?"
Reba laughed. "I'll never have to change diapers."
Alice took her turn. "Except Charlie's. That's what you get for marryin' an older man." She winked at Reba. She had said it for the benefit of their mother, who was standing at the stove with her back turned.
***
Her phone rang. It was almost midnight. Who would be calling her at this time of night? "Hello?" she said groggily.
"Reba?" It was Susie, and she was crying.
"What's wrong?"
***
Reba screeched to a stop in the hospital parking lot, running inside in her pajama bottoms and a worn out t-shirt from her alma mater, SEOSU. "I'm here to see Susie Luchsinger."
"Right through these doors, ma'am." The nurse knew Reba, and Reba knew the nurse. She always worked the night shift. She was always here when Susie fell down the stairs...
***
The front door of the little house banged open loudly. She could hear her nephew crying in the bedroom down the hall, and the TV blaring in his parent's bedroom. "Paul?! Get the hell out here!"
"Hey Red." He stepped out of the bedroom, looking perfectly put together as usual. He never looked like the monster he was.
"You're the luckiest man on earth. I don't have my gun because I left the house in a whirlwind at THREE THIS MORNING! I had to go see my little sister in the hospital, because she fell down the stairs again. Funny, isn't it, how your house has no stairs?"
"She back talked."
"She's pregnant. You can't beat her because she back talked you. Ever. She's carrying your child, Paul. Does that mean anything?"
"Yeah, it means she missed her pill again." He shrugged his shoulders. She almost exploded.
"I'm taking E.P. You can stay here and bask in this... life you have created for yourself where everyone hates you, and your child and your wife fear you."
***
She carried her crying nephew up the steps to Alice's house. This was exactly why she did not want children. Ever.
***
Three nights later, her phone rang in the middle of the night, again. "What?" She didn't mean to be rude, but Susie was staying with Alice and no one more important could be calling her.
"I miss you."
It was Narvel
