Chapter 2
Eight Months Later
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D
ana rushed into the offices of Drs. McCormick and Hausmann, psychiatrists, three minutes before their office closed at six
P.M.
She was later than usual in delivering their dictated patient notes, but as long as she got there before they went home for the day, technically no one could accuse her of being tardy. She did have a good excuse; a quick oil change and tire rotation this morning had turned into a complete brake job.
Still, she apologized profusely to the office manager. This was her favorite client, and she definitely didn't want to tick them off. They tended to use the same wording in their assessments, and since they had so many repeat patients, all she had to do was cut and paste older dictations into new ones and edit them as she listened. She found it sad that so many people with mental-health problems didn't seem to be getting any better, but it also represented an easy way for her to make money in a situation where she desperately needed it.
She'd been up since 5:00
A.M.
, and with the exception of a forty-minute catnap, had been in motion all day. Her largest client, a family practice, had just added a new doctor, their third. The physicians and the nurse practitioner each saw up to fifteen patients a day, and between her two clients she had almost more work than she could handle. In spite of this, she now contracted additional work from another local service. And since her checking account balance got lower and lower each month, it still wasn't enough.
Unfortunately for her, the only life insurance Kenny had was the coverage that came through his work, a paltry $25,000. Because the medical examiner determined he had suffered a spasm while lifting weights, the policy paid double for death by accident, and she had received $50,000, but Dana had a mortgage payment, a car payment, utilities, health insurance, and food, which of course were just the basics. Plenty of extras figured into her budget as well, like Brittany's weekly piano lessons and dance lessons, and cable TV. She'd had the premium channels turned off, and she hadn't been to the manicurist or hairdresser in months, but she didn't see how else she could economize. Part of her wanted to ask Cécile, who bragged that she fed her entire family of eight on less than a hundred dollars a week, for tips, but that would mean admitting she was in trouble. Dana had spent her entire adult life putting on a brave face, to the point where it had become ingrained in her.
Nor did she confide in Brittany. Instead, she told her daughter they had nothing to worry about, but in truth she was beginning to get frightened. Kenny's funeral costs had been high, largely because of the expense of shipping his body to his native Bahamas for burial, which she knew he would have wanted. She was going through the remainder of the insurance proceeds rapidly, spending as though Kenny were still bringing home a paycheck twice a month, which of course he wasn't. After eight months, it was clear she didn't have much time before the rest of the money was gone.
Dana's memories of what happened after she found Kenny that afternoon were fuzzy at best, even after all these months. As she placed hysterical phone calls, she remembered taking a moment to be grateful that Brittany wasn't at home to see him lying there. First she called 911 and then Norell, who hadn't gotten home from the mall yet, and finally Cécile, who sped right over, arriving just after the paramedics, and holding Dana upright when light-headedness made her begin to sway. She did remember the paramedics theorizing that Kenny had suffered a spasm while lifting the seventy-five-pound weight and 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 âtill 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 her Camry moved forward. It was so unfair, the way death had touched her again, robbing her so suddenly of someone she loved and cutting his life short. Had it not been for the crash her mother would now be in her mid-sixties and still vital, and Gail would only be in her early forties. Even Aunt Joan had passed away much too young some time ago, a victim of cancer. And Kenny, the one who'd most recently joined all of them ...
She felt moisture pooling in her eyes and blinked it away. Instead, she looked at the Ziploc bag on the seat beside her, bulging with microcassette tapes to be transcribed.
She had no time for tears; she had work to do.
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One of the first things Dana did after Kenny's accident was put his Eclipse and his weights up for sale. They both sold quickly, but still, every time she pulled into her driveway after six
P.M.
a tiny part of her psyche that ignored reality expected to see his car there. Then it hit her all over again that he wouldn't ever be coming home, and that was when the misgivings started:
If only I had gotten home earlier. Kenny wouldn't have been alone. I could have gotten that weight off him before he suffocated.
It had become part of her daily routine.
She pulled up in front of the detached garage. She and Kenny were thrilled when they found this house nine years before. She used to feel pride at the sight of her well-tended home, built in a community purposely designed to look like a throwback to an earlier era, when houses were built close to the sidewalk, with wide front porches and separate garages. Now she felt a combination of rage and exhaustion. Kenny had died in the garage, and even though she knew it wasn't rational, she hated the sight of the structure. But it took energy to sustain anger, energy she needed to reserve for the hours of work still in front of her.
Dana found Brittany in the kitchen, wearing oven mitts on both hands as she removed a meat loaf from the oven. “The timer just went off, Mom.”
“Good. I don't know about you, but I'm hungry.”
“Did you get to the office before they closed?”
“Yes. Traffic wasn't bad. Everything's fine,” she said in the bright tone she always used when she talked to her daughter. It sounded less than authentic these days, even to her own ears.
“You look tired, Mom.”
“I had a lot of work to do today, but tomorrow my load will be lighter. It's Wednesday, and they either close early or don't come in at all.”
“You want me to make the mashed potatoes?”
“Sure. Put in a little extra milk, will you?”
“Okay, but it'll have to be evaporated milk. I opened a can to use for the meat loaf because we didn't have any real milk.”
“We've got milk. I just bought some last night.”
“I didn't see it, Mom.”
Dana opened the refrigerator portion of the side-by-side. She fully expected to see the plastic gallon container tucked in the wide shelf inside the door rather than on the glass shelves in front, the only place Brittany had probably looked. Kids could be so lazy sometimes.
But there was no container. Dana frowned, and her eyes widened when she realized there could be only one solution as to the whereabouts of the milk. “I'll be right back.” She slammed the refrigerator shut and ran toward the back door. Outside, she raised the trunk of her Camry, and there was the jug of milk, nestled in a corner so it wouldn't fall over. Damn it! She thought she'd brought everything inside last night.
She wrapped her fingers around the handle. It was warm, and certainly the contents were spoiled after being in the hot trunk all day. She carried it inside.
“Don't drink this; it's sour,” she said to Brittany. “It's been in the trunk since last night.”
Brittany made a face. “Then why are you putting it back in the fridge?”
Because I can't afford to waste a whole gallon of milk
. “I'm going to let it get cold. Tomorrow I'll open it, pour out a little bit, and then bring it back to the store and tell them it tasted funny. They'll give me another gallon. I know it's sneaky, but we have to economize, Britt.” Work on her car's brakes had been costly, just another example of how hard it was to make it on her own. Suddenly she felt like crying.
“Like turning off HBO and Showtime?”
“Yes. We can't afford that right now.”
“But what about Daddy's life insurance, all that money you got?”
Dana chose her words carefully. She didn't want to come out and say that Kenny, whom Brittany idolized, had been grossly underinsured, setting the stage for their current predicament. He wasn't yet forty and had been in excellent health, but because he was worried about the multiple sclerosis that so cruelly attacked his older brother, he thought it more prudent to invest in expensive disability insurance. Purchasing additional life insurance to raise his coverage to at least a quarter million had been on his to-do list, but unfortunately for Dana and Brittany, his fatal accident occurred before he got around to it.
When the first premium for the disability insurance came in after his funeral, Dana had angrily scrawled “deceased” over it in large red letters and sent it back. She pictured the underwriters at the insurance company being relieved at not having to ante up the value of a hefty double-indemnity life insurance policy, which only made her more furious. Death was the ultimate disability, yet she had little to show for it.
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After dinner Dana ran water and dishwashing liquid in the sink. She rarely used the dishwasher these days; it cost too much to run. She hummed along as Brittany pounded out the theme from
Titanic
on the piano. Actually, she sounded pretty good, playing the familiar melody smoothly and in tempo. She and Brittany always joked that if Brittany wanted to enter the Miss America pageant, she could play the piano for her talent, but none of that classical stuff most contestants played. Adding a few arpeggios here and there was all she needed to be ready for competition.