Nothing But Trouble Read Free Page A

essentially dropped it, the bar crushing his airway. She thought she heard one of them say to another, “Prime example of why you should never work out alone.”
    Her friends had proved invaluable during that time. Norell and Vic went with her to make the funeral and burial arrangements; and Cécile, in spite of her obligations to her own large family, was always close at hand, making sure Brittany ate and offering consolation, a hug, a few words of encouragement, or merely a shoulder to cry on. Norell and Cécile had put aside their personal squabbles and petty jealousies and pulled together to help her. As a result, the women’s three-way friendship of nearly a decade had strengthened.
    Neighbors and parents of Brittany’s friends dropped off roast chickens, potato salads, and casseroles, which helped tremendously, especially after Kenny’s parents arrived with Niles, their eldest son, whose multiple sclerosis confined him to a wheelchair.
    To Dana’s surprise, her own father, Raymond Britt, had come to the funeral, driving up from Miami with his second wife. She rarely saw him, and whenever she did the air was thick with tension. Perhaps he felt guilty for his words and actions after the family life they knew abruptly ended at an intersection in a mass of shattered glass and twisted steel. Her jaw tightened as she remembered. Her father should feel guilty.
    Overcome by grief, she’d looked to him for comfort and tried to offer him the same, but he barely acknowledged her. When family and close friends gathered at the house after her mother and Gail’s joint service, Dana overheard a friend telling him that at least he still had Dana, that he hadn’t lost his entire family. To her shock, her father tearfully confessed that he could cope a lot better “if I’d lost the one and still had the other two.”
    His friend looked taken aback, and Dana had gasped. When her father turned around and saw her standing there he’d rushed to her and apologized, but she could tell his regret lay not in the way he felt, but in that she’d heard him say it.
    The next day he sent her to live with his sister, who lived several miles away, under the guise of seeing that she received meals and care while he coped with his grief. Dana didn’t know at the time that she’d never live in her father’s house again. A stay intended for only a week or two had stretched into over a year, until she left for college. Her Aunt Joan and her family welcomed her and included her in all their activities, but the pain of her father’s abandonment prevented her from appreciating the love they showed her until years later.
    She’d met Kenny her junior year and married him right after she graduated, intending to live happily ever after the rest of their lives. Neither of them could know that ‘till death do us part’ would come after just fifteen years.
    After Kenny’s service, Dana spent a few awkward moments talking to her father. As she accepted his condolences, she tried not to think about those unhappy months at Aunt Joan’s, but now that she’d suffered another loss, a comparison was inevitable. But she couldn’t imagine sending Brittany to live with an aunt while she struggled to accept Kenny’s death. Brittany didn’t even have an aunt. Gail had been Dana’s only sibling, and Niles was Kenny’s.
    In Brittany, Dana saw a reason to keep going. Brittany was a comfort to her, just as she had wanted to be a comfort to her father so many years ago. Every time she looked at Brittany she saw a reason to make a future. In contrast, her father had viewed her as a living being who should have been a ghost.
    Dana stared sightlessly at the red traffic light in front of her, only alerted of its change to green by the impatient honking of the driver behind her. She promptly shifted her foot to the gas, but her thoughts stayed on the same subject even as