More than the Sum Read Online Free PDF Page A

Brittany’s appearance.  For a fleeting moment, Brittany toyed with telling her that she had cut her hair off in a rage; instead, without comment, she tossed the plastic bag containing her hair on the counter.
    Without making any effort to offer any consolation, Alma jumped right in, asking her, “Might I ask when were you going to answer my phone calls and tell me Craig left you?” She spoke in a clipped voice, waving the letter in the air while she talked.  “You were well aware that I had a bad feeling about you both on Christmas. Your brother and I were about to send the police over to check on you.” 
    That’s just great!   Brittany thought. Now her brother was being consulted to weigh in on how to handle her. She toyed with a few expletives before her brain checked in, warning her to keep her mouth shut.  Okay! Zip your lip, Brittany, she thought, feeling defensive. This time mother can wonder what I’m thinking.
    “ I appreciate your concern, Mother, but I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone yet.  That’s all—surely you get that. Obviously you’ve read his letter, so enough said...”  She turned away from her mother to brew some tea for herself, and give herself a minute to cool down. “As you have already seen, Craig is being more than fair.” She waited for a response, got none, and so went on, “I signed the paperwork this morning.” She waited, but still no response, and took that as a cue to retrieve the letter, grabbing it from her mother’s fingers, tearing off a corner in the process.
    Alma chose not to play the game, so she pushed her chair away from the counter and stood to her feet.  While she was pulling on her coat, she gave Brittany one last, very deliberate, once-over.  “Brittany, I am very hurt by this, but I am going to give you some grace because I can see that you are clearly not lucid.” She paused for emphasis. “Since you have made it abundantly clear you don’t want my advice, I won’t offer any.”  Then she shook her head in the same way she had done when Brittany was little, having been caught with her hand in the proverbial cookie jar, and offered her a last bit of unsolicited advice, “But, please girl”, she told her, “for the sake of all of us, do pull yourself together!” 
    With that, she turned and let herself out the front door, letting it slam behind her, having effectively turned Brittany’s loss into being about her.  Once she was gone, Brittany began to tremble, glad she was alone. She knew ignoring her mother’s calls was a calculated risk. That, along with giving in to her own defensive reactions that morning, would very likely result in her being shunned by Alma, and she knew she would have to do some very significant groveling to find herself in Alma’s good graces again.
    No, she could live with being shunned—at least for now.  No one was going to mess with her newly transformed head for a while.
     
     
    The now scum coated cups of cocoa, and the plate of fudge and cookies, sat untouched on the coffee table in the living room.  Brittany cleaned them away, nibbling on a cookie while consuming a container of past the expiration date peach yogurt.  That much sugar would no doubt only add to her jitters, so she decided she should go to the store before her shaking became chronic. 
    After changing into a pair of jeans and sweat shirt, she drove to a market a few blocks away.  While pushing her cart around the maze of aisles toward the produce section, she tried to ignore the creepy feeling one gets when they believe someone is stalking them, only this time it was not her imagination. Without any makeup, and with most of her hair cut off, she looked drastically different than normal. The stalker, it turned out, was her neighbor, Jeanne Stone, who was following her,trying to get a good look at who the Brittany look- alike was.  
    After getting her attention, Jeanne pulled her cart alongside Brittany’s, staring hard at her. Brittany