-- 29 --
"I think I better go pick up Jake from school." said Brock, resisting the temptation to kiss the lady with the sparkling blue eyes in front of him. It wasn't easy.
"Yes. Right. You should." Reba woke up from a daydream. For a moment there she wished he would just kiss her, maybe if they kissed again, she might just forget about being separate. She stood up and walked into the kitchen, preparing dinner for herself and Kyra, Jake would be with his dad tonight and they said they would go out for burgers. Kyra was in the kitchen writing her new song. "Kyra, why did you leave us?"
"Geez mom, I left since the picture of you two kissing in the paddleboat, and you just noticed me missing? Anyway, I have to leave, the way you two looked at each other it was like you were gonna pounce on each other at any minute. I don't want to be there to see that." Reba shook her head, and remembered Barbra Jean left them and they didn't know when she was gone too. They were so wrapped up in their own world. Reba let out a soft grin thinking about the day he burst out and said he loved her. A cell phone beeped. "It's mine" said Kyra, checking her message, Reba continued to prepare for dinner. Kyra brought a small radio into the kitchen and tuned to a specific station. Listening to easy listening music.
"I didn't know you like soft music" Reba quipped
"Every once in a while" said Kyra, putting her pencil down and leaving the kitchen, she left the radio playing. Reba was putting vegetables in the steamer when she heard someone request a song: a familiar voice.
"I'd like to dedicate this song to my one true love. Please forgive me for my stupidity and hurting you. I love you, Reba" she almost dropped the steamer.
I
didn't mean to make you cry
I didn't mean to disappoint you
I
didn't mean to tell you lies
And after all that we have been
through
Won't you let me tell you why
One more try, I didn't
know how much I loved you
One more try, Let me put my arms around
you
Living all these lonely nights without you
Oh baby can we
give it one more try
It's been a long time since I kissed you
It
always used to feel so good
And if you know how much I missed you
You'd forgive me if you could
And now that we have found each
other
Can't we give it one more try (one more try)
One more
try, I didn't know how much I loved you
One more try, Let me put
my arms around you
Living all these lonely nights without you
Oh
baby can we give it one more try
"Mom, the.."
"Shh.." she shushed Kyra, listening to the rest of the song until the end. "Yes, Kyra?"
"The boiling water in the pot is drying"
"Shoot! Why didn't you tell me sooner? When did you come back in the kitchen?" Kyra rolled her eyes; her mom wasn't pay attention to her surroundings at all when the song started to play. Reba quickly added more water before it burned the pot. "Kyra..." called Reba, after they were eating quietly for a while.
"Yes mom?"
"Who send you the text message?"
"I think you already know"
"Why do you help him?" Reba wondered,
"Beside 'he's my dad'? Look out your window after you turn out your bedroom light and you'll see why." Kyra wouldn't say anything more.
"Well, then tell him thanks for the song."
"Why don't you tell him yourself, I'm not a messenger?"
"He told you when he was going to request the song, didn't he? So yes, you are a messenger." Kyra pouted at her mom's comment. She picked up her cell phone and read what she typed.
"Dad, mom said she needs you now"
"Kyra!" she snatched the phone from her daughter to read the message she sent. "Pheew..." she was just sending 'mom said thanks'. She snatched the phone back from her mom and ran away before she got smacked. Reba smiled after her daughter, she knew Kyra was just trying to help.
At night, after Reba had finished her nightly routine, she turned off the light and remembered what Kyra told her, she stepped close to the window, standing next to the wall and looking outside, her heart melted with tenderness seeing Brock sitting by the tree house looking up at her window. He sat there awhile before he walked back to his house. Reba swallowed a lump in her throat. She told herself that he would get tired of it soon enough. Yet, she went to bed with tears. She slept in and woke up with a headache. She cried herself to sleep again.
"Geez mom, you look terrible," said Kyra seeing her mom making her way in the kitchen.
"Good morning to you too, Kyra." Reba poured herself a cup of coffee before joining Kyra at the kitchen table; she was still working on her new song. She stopped playing her guitar when her mom sat down.
"What happened? Cried yourself to sleep?"
"How long had he been doing that, Kyra?"
"Standing outside your window, wishing he could be in there to hold you all night? I don't know when he started, but I noticed him when I told him you fainted in the tub."
"Two months..." Reba muttered
"About that. I even joke with him that I'd let him borrow my guitar, so he could serenade you. You know what he said?" Reba shook her head with a little grin at the corner of her mouth. "He said, 'you think that would work?' Man, he was really ready to try anything."
"That's sweet, but I think soon he'll get tired of this." And she changed the subject. "Tell me about the song you've been writing."
"Sure, the song I'm writing is about marriage. It sucks!"
"Kyra!"
"It's true mom. I've been there when you first divorced with dad, it was not pretty. Then when Barbra Jean first separated with dad, she was just lying on the couch in her sweats, tried to dress like me. That's not cool. Now back to you and dad again."
"You don't have to be married to have a broken heart, Kyra."
"I know, but then you just walked away. You don't have to force yourself to try and make it work. If dad knew he wasn't legally married to Barbra Jean, he would have left her a couple of years ago when Barbra Jean caught you two in bed, I mean hugging each other." explained Kyra "Face it mom, you didn't even like being married, yourself."
"That's not true, I did enjoy being married. It was nice to have someone to care for, to hold on to, to share your strengths and your weaknesses. To love and to be loved." said Reba in a dreaming tone.
"You said it like it's a good thing"
"It is a good thing"
"Then why aren't you?" asked Kyra looking at her mom in the eyes, Reba just realized she was digging herself into a hole.
"I am, you see?" she showed Kyra the wedding band. "It's just not legal yet, that's all"
"If that's what you called married, then I was right. It sucks! Dad standing outside your window every night, and you cry yourself to sleep, tell me again how's that a good thing?"
"I don't know how am I going to win this argument without grounding you or digging myself deeper into a hole, but someday I'll prove to you that it's a good thing." Before she left the kitchen she turned around to her daughter. "And since you're at it, would you like to write the song about having a smart daughter sucks!"
"Sure mom, right after I finish the song 'having a stubborn mom sucks'" Kyra quipped. Reba childishly stuck her tongue out at her daughter before stomping away. She still believed that Brock would get tired of standing outside her window soon enough when he felt he didn't get anything out of this.
Reba couldn't be more wrong. She still saw him standing outside her window every night, she had been watching him for two whole weeks. And tonight, the forecast said it would rain. She really didn't think he'd come by and stand in the rain. But there he was, sitting in the tree house, sheltered from the rain, he still got soaked from the rain that the wind blew in his direction, looking up at her window. The light was still on, she's still awake. He wondered what she was doing, maybe she might be reading, Reba loved to read. Could it be possible that she was thinking about him too? Would she miss him like the way he missed her?
"Brock" called the woman that he was dreaming about. She stood right there in front of him wearing her nightgown underneath her robe. She stood under a big umbrella.
"Reba, I thought you were in your room."
"Why are you doing this?"
"I coudn't see you sleep anymore, at least I want to see you go to bed." said Brock sincerely. Reba sighed.
"You're insane." she shook her head in disbelieve "Come on in" she led him into the house, up to her bedroom. Brock stood right in front of her bedroom, didn't walk in.
"What? Haven't you been in here before?" Reba quipped, looking through her closet. Brock grinned. Did she really invite him in voluntarily? Or was he just dreaming?
