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Tina was asleep at the foot of her bed clinging to Bette’s pillow with her cell phone clutched to her hand. It was close to six in the morning and Bette hadn’t called or texted her to let her know she was alright or anything. Her phone rang and she could hear it ringing in her sleep but the all day consumption of beer only allowed her so much movement. She groggily answered the phone without looking at it.

“Hello.” came a raspy whisper.

“Christine I know you are not still sleep this time of day?”

“Momma?” she questioned with one eye barely open, she tried to focus her swirling vision on the alarm clock on the night stand but moving was way to difficult. “What time is it?”

“It’s time to wake up and get to work! Everything in that house is working but you!”

“Oh Jesus.” Tina rolled her eyes open and saw that the sun in the sky was barely pre-dawn sunlight. “Momma it is six in the morning.” she whined looking at her phone.

“I didn’t ask you that, I know what time it is out there.”

“Alright momma, alright, ok.” Tina knew better than to try and raise the point of time and convenience with her mother. “How is everything? Is Daddy ok?” Tina sat up and planted her head into her hand as she spoke.

“Yo Daddy’s just fine Darlin’ we were wondering if y’all were gonna come down for the Family Reunion this year? We miss our grandbabies.”

“Momma you guys just saw them like a month ago at the end of summer?”

“That was three months ago Tina. I’m not so old that I need reminding of that either.”

“Momma I haven’t discussed it with Bette yet, we’ve been kind of… busy,” Tina glanced back at the empty bed behind her and she missed the shapely figure that occupied that side of the bed. “We haven’t had time to sit down and discuss that yet.”

“Well we were gonna order y’all some shirts anyway, and yo Daddy wanted to know what their sizes were.”

“Well the twins wear the same size, unless you wanted to get Jacky a girl cut?”