Later that evening, when the phone rang, Reba was sitting at the dining table, trying to keep herself busy with some old paperwork she'd found in the garage. She picked up without even checking the caller ID.
"Reba Hart."
"Hi Reba, it's Dr. Baker."
She froze, "If you're lookin' for Brock, he's not here."
He chuckled on the other end of the line. "Reba, that's not why I called." When she didn't speak, he continued, "I owe you an apology."
"Dr. Baker, I–"
"Joseph. Joe, please," he interrupted.
She swallowed and shifted uncomfortably. "I should be apologizin' to you for wastin' your time earlier."
"Reba," he said softly. "I promised myself when I began my career as a therapist that I'd never let other people's opinions form my opinion of someone. I broke that promise today, Reba. It was incredibly unprofessional, and I'm sorry."
She'd not been expecting that. "I don't know what to say."
"I know. That's alright,"
She could hear his smile.
"I'd also like to apologize for being so aggressive because that's not typically how I go about things either."
"What are you sayin'?" she asked.
There was a moment of silence between them.
"I'd like to help you," he said finally. "I can see that you're hurting and probably have been for quite some time."
She looked down at her free hand and picked at her thumbnail with her index. "Yeah," she said softly.
"Would you be willing to come back to my office tomorrow afternoon to talk? One-on-one. No Brock, no Barbra Jean."
She chuckled softly and brushed a stray tear from her cheek. "Sure,"
"Say, 2:30?"
She nodded, "I'd like that."
"Have a good evening, Reba. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon."
"You too," she breathed just before the line went dead.
She got up to set the phone back into its cradle, her busy work long forgotten. According to the phone cradle, it was 8:30 pm. The intelligent thing to do would be to turn in early and try to forget everything that had happened today. However, she knew better than to think she could simply fall asleep tonight.
The two bottles of red wine she'd picked up on her way home had been calling her name for hours. A glass or two would keep her from tossing and turning all night long, and it couldn't hurt, especially paired with a hot bath. She'd be out like a light.
So, that's what she did.
She retrieved a wineglass from the cupboard and the corkscrew from the drawer and locked both the kitchen doors. She collected everything in her arms, tucked the chilled bottle of wine beneath her elbow, flipped off the kitchen light, and headed toward the living room. She added the cheesy romance novel she'd started the other day to the pile as she passed it by, pulled the lamp chain, and finally locked the front door.
Once in her bathroom, Reba placed everything down within reach and turned the hot water on. Beneath the sink, she kept an arsenal of stress-relieving products for nights like this. Several different scents of bubble baths, Epsom salts, face masks, body lotion, even an aroma diffuser and a collection of essential oils to go with it. She settled on a lavender bubble bath, which she generously poured into the water from her perch on the tub's edge.
She momentarily left her delightfully scented ensuite to rummage through the collection of candles she kept in her closet. She had pillars on beautiful bases, tealights, flameless, and floating, scented and unscented. You name it; she had it.
On her way back in, she fished out the lighter she kept in the drawer and began lighting candles strategically around the room. If she nodded off, she didn't want them anywhere she could knock over or close enough to catch fire to her hair.
To complete the ritual, she flicked off the light and inhaled deeply as she took in her handiwork. She basked in the candlelight glow for a brief moment before making her way back to the water, gently dropping each article of clothing to the floor in a trail behind her.
She shut off the tap and dipped her toe into the scalding water. It felt amazing and was precisely what she'd needed to help her forget the things that had transpired today, at least for a little while. Every inch of skin that she lowered into the water turned crimson. She popped the cork off the bottle of wine, poured herself a healthy glass, took a big mouth-watering sip, closed her eyes, leaned all the way back, swallowed, sighed, and let herself sink right down to her nose.
For a while, that was enough. Until the first few sips of wine made their way through her body much faster than she would have liked, she realized she hadn't eaten since this morning, and that's when the entire day came rushing back and overwhelmed her with bone-crushing force. She was suddenly glad that Van had taken Cheyenne and Elizabeth out for dinner; and that Jake had decided to go over to his Dad's again for the night. Nobody would hear her fall to pieces alone in her house.
And, fall to pieces, she did. Everything washed over her in waves. It had been nearly two weeks since Brock told her he had made a mistake leaving her, and she hadn't allowed herself to truly feel the weight of what that meant until now, and she wept.
As she lay in the candlelight, the hot water was a welcomed embrace as tears cascaded down her cheeks. She let herself grieve for her marriage all over again. She mourned just as hard as she had the day Brock had finally told her Barbra Jean was pregnant, and there was no going back. Her heart ached for what could have been, what should have been.
Just as she calmed down, she remembered that next month would've been 24 years, and it all came crashing down over her again.
This was her life, and she was ashamed that a therapist, a perfect stranger, had managed to pinpoint the root cause of her issues within half an hour of meeting her. If Dr. Baker could figure it out that quickly, anybody could, which terrified her. All this time, she thought she'd been hiding it all so well. She had even managed to hide it from herself.
Do I still love him?
He was her best friend and the father of her children, so she supposed, naturally, she still loved him, but even admitting just that to herself didn't feel right. Not when it still hurt to go to bed alone, in their bed, in their room, in their house, with their kids down the hall. She still flinched every time she heard him tell Barbra Jean he loved her and every single time they kissed. Her heart even still skipped when he came through the front door with that smile.
God, I do.
She didn't want to, which had to count for something. She so badly wanted to hate him until the day she died, but she couldn't. She just didn't have it in her to hate him that much.
When she finally had no tears left to shed, and her throat was ragged, she pulled the plug free with her toe and downed her last swallow. She lay there unmoving as the water that had long since gone cold drained around her.
Eventually, she lifted her stiff and aching body from the cold porcelain and rose to her feet, shivering. She hastily wrapped a towel around herself and padded downstairs into her empty home. It was dark now, quiet, and she had no idea what time it was. Nor did she care. Without another thought, she popped open the second bottle and poured herself a glass as she leaned against the stove.
When she tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear, she caught the movement in the window and stifled another sob at the woman she found looking back at her. Black mascara tracks had dried on her cheeks, just the ends of her hair were damp, her bangs were all out of sorts from running her hands through them, and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen from crying.
She looked like hell, and she felt like hell.
The glass in her hand no longer held the same appeal it did just moments ago. She poured it down the sink, tossing the glass in after it. It shattered, and she watched in bewilderment as the deep red swirled around the broken crystal. She grabbed the bottle and poured it down the drain too.
She propped the bottle against the sink to let it finish, and then her form crumbled. She leaned down on her forearms on the edge of the sink and let her head hang between them. Shame and sorrow washed over her, and she began to sob silently right there in the middle of her kitchen.
When she realized that Van and Cheyenne were bound to be home any minute, she bolted upright. She reached for a tissue to wipe her eyes and began picking broken pieces of wine glass out of the sink. When she was done, she rinsed the remainder of the wine down the drain and put the empty bottle with the rest on the counter beside the fridge.
She'd just reached the top of the stairs when she heard the kitchen door unlock and Van and Cheyenne doing their best to be quiet in the dark. She sighed in relief and padded into her bedroom, shutting the door soundlessly behind her.
Her head ached from the crying, the stress, and the following exhaustion. She downed a couple of Tylenol, and the next thing she knew, it was 9:15 am the following day, and she was face down on top of her still-made bed in the same towel she'd been wrapped in last night.
She groaned, her headache from the night before still raging, popped two more Tylenol, and got up to shower.