Free More than the Sum by Fran Riedemann

Good-byes were exchanged and she opened the door and slipped inside. Then he was gone. Once in her bedroom she slipped out of her clothes without turning on any lights, falling across the bed after gulping down a handful of Advil for the headache that was sure to come. 
    She didn’t want the last part of what she remembered about the evening to be what she must look like.
     
    ***
    By Monday morning her sunburn’s acute redness had dissipated, but she wasn’t in the mood to field questions about her weekend from her associates at the office.  She called saying she would be working from home, which she knew would prompt a different kind of speculation as to why. Her department all knew too much about each other’s' business and she knew they would probe, given the chance.  After putting some lotion on the back of her neck she wondered if it was especially tender because every spring up to now her long hair had covered it.
    She looked down at Shadow, who was vigorously cleaning his paws. He looked up briefly and returned to his grooming, clearly not interested.
    Her phone rang shortly after lunchtime. The call was from her office. “What? She said when she answered, “Flowers? For me?” She was puzzled. Apparently a large bouquet of all white flowers had been delivered to her. Sure that they were from Rick-the-Painter who she worried might be infatuated with her, she asked the receptionist to read the card to her. 
    “ I enjoyed our chance meeting.  I chose flowers that would go well with red.  Hope you like them. Allan”. . .
    “ Who is Allan?” the receptionist asked her.
    Brittany felt herself blushing. Either the flowers were a nice gesture or he had put his money where his mocking mouth was, and was reminding her how she looked again .  Could I really have looked that red? She wondered.  Now she was especially glad she’d decided to work from home.
    “ Are they pretty?” she asked, trying to avert a nosy question. 
    “ Yes ,very!  The arrangement is actually quite extravagant.” She answered, with emphasis. “You still haven’t said who Allan is. And, what’s with the red?” Liz was the one person in the office who was always in the know, and Brittany was confident she’d already read the card. Annoyed, she cut her off, “I’ll give you the skinny tomorrow. Have fun speculating…” She was sure she heard laughter before the call cut off, picturing them all standing around the front counter, debating what Brittany must have done to be rewarded with flowers that were conspicuously sent to her workplace instead of her house. 
    But in spite of the temptation to be annoyed, she found herself smiling. 
     

 
     
     
    Chapter Nine
     
     
     
    Five months after the divorce, Brittany had reason to feel reasonably good about how she was coping but, even so, suspected there was some lingering emotional baggage that might  find its own way of attaching itself to her, potentially making itself known when she wasn’t expecting it. There was no putting it off; it was time to deal with the tender spots in her psyche that might potentially become rejection issues. 
    After the uncomfortable Easter Sunday dinner at her Mother’s, they only spoke two other times, with those conversations relating to her father’s estate. Since Brittany was used to complying with her mother’s terms, the lack of communication in itself wasn’t troubling or hurtful, but she had turned a corner in what she could tolerate, and suspected her mother had turned a corner of her own. 
    They were on a new course, and their routes were heading in opposite directions. In her own defense, she had tried to call her mother in the beginning, leaving messages because her mother didn’t pick up. Her calls weren’t returned.
    Craig’s leaving had been painful, but not in ways she could have predicted. The marriage was over like it had never happened, leaving her numb and with no options.
    She didn’t think of herself as stoic