Not surprisingly, Cody wasn’t at home when Candice and Janice returned from the doctor’s office, although he showed up shortly afterwards. “So where did you go?” Candice asked out of curiosity.

“Well, I went over to Mr. Schindenwulfe’s office to see if I could talk to him about what’s involved in becoming a lawyer,” Cody shrugged. “I mean, you can get all this stuff online, but I figured it’s good to talk to someone I know. But he wasn’t there, so I went over to the police station and talked to Charlie Wexler about police academy a bit.”

“Still thinking about it?”

“Well, yeah. The last time I talked to him Charlie pointed out that it wasn’t something I had to make my mind up about right away. It wouldn’t be any problem to put the decision off till I’m a senior in college. Maybe I’ll think of something else by then. So how did the doctor’s visit go?”

“He said I’m getting better,” Janice replied shyly. “I’ve put on a few pounds, although I’ve still got a ways to go. I had a nice talk with Heather, too.”

“The nurse who comes to change your dressings and stuff?”

“Yes, she’s very nice. We got to talking a little about how she became a nurse. Cody, do you think I could become a nurse?”

“It’s possible,” he told her. “As far as I’m concerned, you can become just about anything you want to be.”

Candice hadn’t heard about that, but she heard Janice’s words with a private sigh of relief. It was the first time the girl had said anything about looking toward the future and had initiated contact about it with someone on her own. It was first-hand proof that things were getting better for her – slowly perhaps, but getting better. “All I know is that it takes a lot of training and the right kind of person,” she said. “I thought about it back when I was about your age, but I got led into veterinary technology, and things went goofy from there.”

“Well, give it some thought,” Cody said. “You can probably find out a lot about it on the Internet.”

“I’m afraid I’m not very good with the Internet,” Janice said shyly. “I didn’t have it before, and I only got to use it at school a little. Can you help me?”

“Sure, you know that,” he grinned. “Just let me know when you want to get started. If you’re not getting close to wanting a nap, we could do that, or we could work on geometry again.”

“Either one, Cody, I don’t care.”

“Maybe we’d better work on geometry again,” he replied thoughtfully. “You’re having trouble with that and you’ll need it for exams in a few weeks. We’ve got plenty of time to mess around on the ’net.”

“Whatever you say. It’s fine with me.”

Very soon, the two of them were at the kitchen table with textbooks cracked open. When she thought about it, Candice was impressed – first at Cody’s keeping her on task, but also by the fact that he’d about had to start from scratch with Janice. Candice knew that Janice had not gotten much out of the class over the fall, since she didn’t understand it very well in the first place, having had a less-than-stellar teacher and a raft of her own problems. Early on, Cody had gone back to the front of the book with her and started over; under his tutelage, Janice was picking it up rapidly, and Cody rarely had to explain a complicated concept to her more than once. Once again, Candice realized that Janice really was a sharp kid, just one who’d had extremely lousy luck, right up until the minute that Cody found her.

Candice was thinking about heading back down to the store and relieving Tiffany so she could get back to her kids when the phone rang. “Hi, is this Candice Archer?” she heard a woman say on the other end of the line. “This is Carole Hunt. Shovelhead said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Wow, that was quick,” Candice replied.

“Well, to tell you the truth, Wendy is working on a complicated scene. She doesn’t want me talking or else I’d louse up the voice-to-text software, so I was sort of wishing I had something useful to do. I can come right over if you like.”

“Sure, that would be fine. The kids are here and I’m here. John is at work and Cody’s brother is out somewhere, probably with his girlfriend.”

“I’ll be right over,” Carole told her. “The way Wendy is looking at me right now I’ll bet she’ll be just as glad to have me out of here. See you in a few.”

As she hung up the phone, Candice wondered about what Carole had said about Wendy working on a scene – and then she remembered. Even though Wendy Carter was a quadriplegic, she was also an author, and a good one if what she’d heard was correct. Candice understood that Wendy had written some big, complicated, esoteric fantasy novels about, well, fantasy of some sort that she couldn’t understand. She hadn’t read them – she didn’t read that kind of thing – but apparently they were considered to be pretty good. Candice knew people who considered Wendy Carter to be the sharpest person in town.

True to her word, Carole was knocking on the door within fifteen minutes. She was a slender blonde, probably somewhere around Candice’s age at a guess, wearing slacks and a heavy sweater. “Glad you could make it so quickly,” Candice said.

“Like I told you on the phone, I’m just glad to have something to do this afternoon. Wendy was starting to get snappy.”

“Well, come on back and meet the kids. They’re out in the kitchen, working on homework.”

It took a couple minutes to make introductions. Candice explained with a little fib that Dr. Metarie had suggested that they have a little counseling to help them get things in perspective, and the statement was aimed more at Janice than Cody. Neither of the kids seemed to mind very much; apparently they were both a little tired of geometry. The four of them soon gathered in the living room, with Janice resting in the recliner as usual.

“This isn’t the usual sort of thing for me,” Carole explained. “But from what little I’ve been told it touches on some of the things that I do. What I want to do is to talk to you, sometimes together, sometimes separately, just to see how you’re coming and maybe help you out with some things here and there. There may be some times that I ask you something that’s hard or personal, but try to remember that I’m trying to help you get on with your lives, not tear you down.”

Carole proved easy to talk to, and she was deft at bringing out things that hadn’t been talked about before. In the next hour or so, Candice learned a lot about Cody and Janice that she wouldn’t have dared to ask herself, things about the kids’ feelings and reactions to the whole affair. A little to Candice’s surprise, Carole didn’t probe very much into what Janice had been through, and suspected they’d go into that more deeply on a one-on-one basis.

That was probably the case; after a while, Carole suggested that Candice and Cody go somewhere and do something else for a while, preferably out of the house. “We can do that,” Candice agreed.

“You’re leaving me, Cody?” Janice asked.

“It’ll be better if you can talk to Carole while I’m not around,” he reassured her. “We won’t be all that long.”

“All right, Cody,” Janice said, obviously a little dispirited. “If you say so.”

And if that doesn’t give Carole a hint of something to work on, Candice thought as she gathered up her coat, then there’s no hope for any of us.

Shay had the Escort out with Bethany somewhere, and John had driven the minivan to work. “Guess we’ll have to walk,” she told Cody. “But it’s not far down to Rick’s. We can have a cup of coffee or something.”

“Fine with me,” Cody said. “It’s just nice to get out and around a little bit. It’ll be better when Janice can get out more, but I’ve been going a little stir crazy from sitting around the house.”

“I know it’s been hard on you, but you’ve really been taking care of her. I know she appreciates it, and I know I do.”

“Well, she deserves it,” Cody said. “I mean, after all the shit she’s gone through. Boy, that Carole is pretty nice, isn’t she?”

“Very nice,” Candice replied as they turned off Grove onto Lakeshore, heading for downtown. Now if Cody will just say something like that to Carole, she thought, maybe she can use it to pry open the things that she was quietly concerned about. “I don’t know her very well. In fact, I’ve only met her briefly a couple times, but she’s very personable.”

“Isn’t she the woman who wore handcuffs all those years?”

“She is,” Candice admitted. “I don’t know much about it since it was before we came here, but it gave her some special insights that I think will help Janice get her head back together.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Cody shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong. I like Janice. But she’s so passive that it bothers me sometimes. I don’t know how much of that is from still being all stove up, how much of it is from all the shit she went through, and how much of it is natural.”

“She probably doesn’t either,” Candice agreed. “But I suspect that’s what Carole is going to find out.”

The hour trip for coffee stretched on to an hour and a half, at least partly because it was comfortable in Rick’s Café and the two of them found a few things to talk about. Finally, they decided to head back, and walking wasn’t a bad deal since it was a pretty decent day for Spearfish Lake in the winter. Candice had no idea of what to expect when she walked back in the house, but suspected that Janice might be pretty somber from having had to have explored some of her past life. But that wasn’t the case; in fact, Janice and Carole were laughing over some story that Carole had told. “Wow,” Janice said brightly, “You must have had some fun with that.”

“Oh, there were fun times,” Carole grinned. “In fact, there were a lot of them. But like anything, there were dark times, too. I like to think I’ve gotten over those days, but it’s mostly because I remember the good times and have mostly forgotten about the bad.”

“I hope we weren’t gone too long,” Candice said, wondering what story Carole had been telling.

“Oh, no,” Carole smiled. “I was just telling some stories, but I was starting to think I wanted to talk to Cody a bit. Cody, I know you’ve just gotten back, but why don’t you ride over to my folks’ house with me? I need to check in on my sister, just on general principles. We can sit in the car and talk or something.”

“Sure, no point in taking my coat off if I can keep it on,” Cody said. “Don’t worry, Jan, I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be waiting,” Jan said, with more of a smile on her face than normal.

“We probably won’t be long, but you never know,” Carole smiled. In a moment, the two of them were out the door. Candice couldn’t help but wonder just how much of that was the need to talk alone, how much of it was to give Cody a quick example of someone who really needed long-term care, and how much of it was really to check on Wendy, who had wanted to be left alone this afternoon. Carole was clearly operating on several levels, and Candice suspected she was learning a lot.

“So,” Candice asked Janice as Carole and Cody were leaving, “What was that all about? You sure seemed to be breaking up with laughter.”

“Oh, it was pretty funny,” Janice said as brightly as Candice had ever seen her. “You know that Carole wore handcuffs for a long time, right?”

“Yes, but it was before we were here, so I never saw it.”

“Well, she was telling me about when she and another girl went down to Florida, laid out on the beach and spent most of the time putting people on. They really had fun with it, and she has some stories to tell.” Janice sobered a bit, then added, “In a way, it was a pretty bad part of her life but she had some good times, too.”

Yes, Candice thought, Carole operates on many levels indeed.

Carole and Cody were gone over an hour, with Cody seeming thoughtful when they got back. “It really isn’t a bad day out there,” Carole reported. “Wendy’s still working on that scene, so we got out of there, drove out on the point and just talked a bit. Candice, you’ve got quite a kid here.”

“I always knew that,” Candice smiled.

“I meant it. Now, I think I want to talk to the two of them with Mom not around. If there’s something you could go and do elsewhere in the house, I’d appreciate it.”

For lack of a better idea, Candice went down to the basement, where John and Josh were often wrapped up with the model railroad. She hadn’t been down there in several days, but she knew what to look for. She headed over to where the model had been damaged in the break-in, to find that John and Josh had made most of the repairs to the scene, although there was still obviously some work to be done. That took all of a minute, so she headed back to the workshop area, flipped on the lights, and got out a wooden craft kit of an old-time house that she worked on occasionally. She normally didn’t spend a lot of time with the model house, but once in a while it was nice to do something down there with John, and this was something that would kill time.

She made some progress on the little house but didn’t have it completed when she heard Carole calling her from upstairs. “I think it’s time we left the kids alone for a while and had a talk between us,” Carole said. “It’s still a nice day out there. Why don’t we go for a drive?”

There was more to it than that, and Candice knew it. She got her coat and followed Carole out to her car, a nice Chrysler sedan. Carole got out on the street, turned on to Lakeshore, and headed for the point without saying much. They were headed down Point Drive before she said, “Those are a couple of very interesting kids. Janice doesn’t act like it, but she’s a tough little cookie.”

“I suspected that,” Candice replied. “She’d about had to have been to survive what she went through.”

“Very true. She’s a smart kid, too, much more than she acts. I suspect that when she gets well again, with a little help from you she’s going to be a pretty attractive girl, as well. But honestly, she’s got some problems.”

“That is pretty clear.”

“Cody is a pretty interesting kid, too,” Carole went on. “He sure isn’t your typical teenage punk, is he?”

“Furthest thing from it. He tends to be pretty dedicated, pretty serious.”

“Darn right, about as serious as a heart attack, and it wouldn’t hurt him to lighten up a little. Look, I’m probably going to be stepping over the line of patient confidentiality a little bit by covering some of the things I’m about to tell you, but this isn’t an official visit, you’re not technically my clients and there are some things you ought to know.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Those two have a really interesting relationship, don’t they? I mean, he’s very devoted to her, not that I think that’s all bad. I’ve been very devoted to my sister ever since her accident, so I guess I don’t see a lot wrong with it.”

“I think a lot of it is sympathy. I’m hoping it’ll clear up some as she gets better.”

“It may, and it may not,” Carole sighed. “Like I said, they have a very interesting relationship. It wouldn’t take much for Cody to turn her into his slave.”

“What?!?”

“Not that she pretty well isn’t already,” Carole smiled. “It’s just that he doesn’t realize it.”

“Carole, I don’t think I’m following you,” Candice gasped, trying to understand what she’d just been told. “You mean whips and chains and like that?”

“Well, yes and no. I mean, I don’t think Cody would even think of that; he doesn’t seem to be wired that way. But I’ve seen people who do have those kinds of relationships, and both partners can be perfectly satisfied and happy with them. In fact, I’m of the opinion that there are more of them around than most people think.”

“Carole, are you shitting me?”

“No, I’m not,” the slender blonde said. “A relationship like that has to work both ways, and you should know that.”

“Me?”

“Of course, you’re a dog musher, you ought to understand it implicitly. When you’re on the sled, you’re the master, well, at least supposed to be. You tell the dogs when to go, when to stop, where to turn, when to rest, and so forth, right? All they have to do is follow your orders.”

“Well, most of the time if I have a well-trained team,” Candice sighed. “There have been times that it hasn’t worked out that way, but that’s usually when I’m training teams.”

“Right, but when they’re well trained, you are the master, right? Now responsibilities go both ways. The dogs have to run and follow instructions. You have to decide which dogs to take, where to put them, harness them up, decide on where to go, when to feed them, and on and on, right?”

“Well, yeah.”

“So don’t you think that there are dogs that are happiest to just run and follow instructions, and leave the tough stuff to you?”

“That pretty well defines a well-trained dog.”

“So you do understand. Now, Janice isn’t a dog by any means but have you ever noticed how apathetic she can be until Cody tells her to do something?”

“Yes, and it’s rather irritating. She listens to him, but I have to talk her into things sometimes.”

“That’s it exactly. Cody isn’t consciously giving her orders, but when he says something directly she takes it as an order and does it to the best of her ability. Cody was telling me about being out at the gun range with Janice. She was spraying shots all over the target until he told her to put them in the black. That was all it took, she did it. She followed his orders to the best of her ability, which was better than she realized she could do.”

“I’ve seen her do it plenty of times but never really thought about it. She doesn’t do that kind of thing for me.”

“Of course not. I hate to use this term, but it’s convenient. You are not her master. Cody is, and she trusts him completely. She will listen to you if he tells her to. Otherwise, she’s not sure it’s the right thing to do and she’s apathetic.”

“Holy crap,” Candice shook her head. “I mean, holy crap! How did this happen?”

“Good question, and I’m afraid I can’t answer that, since we’re talking about what goes on in people’s heads. I’m just guessing, but I would imagine that she’s fairly submissive, anyway. She was probably brought up that way. I didn’t know her mother, but from the little we talked about her I get the impression that she was probably pretty submissive too, at least to put up with the crap that Janice’s father threw at her. You often see that in abusive relationships. It may not be very politically correct of me to say it, but there’s a reason that abused women, especially, have trouble getting away from their abusers. Some of them don’t want to because they feel they need to be dominated. If the ‘abuser’ has an understanding of what’s going on and keeps it under control, a relationship like that can work pretty well. I’ve seen it, and it opened my eyes to what psychology really is all about. But that’s not a story for right now.”

“You’re right, it’s not very politically correct. But how about Janice?”

“That’s actually fairly simple to understand if my theory is correct that she’s pretty submissive to begin with and was brought up that way. I think it is. Then you get her father and brother dumping on her, and the only way she could survive was to be even more submissive.”

“But Cody’s not like that! How did he wind up being her, as you say, master?”

“It’s not hard to imagine,” Carole smiled, “but I’d bet money that it happened somewhere between the time that Cody pulled the trigger and the gun smoke blew away.”

“Oh, Christ,” Candice sighed, “and he had no idea what was happening?”

“No, and for the most part he still doesn’t know it. I decided I wanted to talk to you before I dropped that little one on him, and I need to figure out how to do it. I don’t have all the answers by any means, and this one, at least this way, is a new angle on it for me.”

“What do we do? How can we fix it?”

“Damn good question,” Carole sighed. “Just guessing, and I haven’t thought it out all the way, there may not be any final solution for Janice. It might be that she’s always going to be pretty submissive, because that’s the way she’s put together. As I see it, the best anyone can do is to work on her being able to keep it in place. There’s no reason that she can’t be a perfectly functional human being and still have that trait. For instance, we talked a little bit about her thoughts of being a nurse. Now, a nurse has to make a lot of decisions, has a lot of responsibility. I wouldn’t be surprised if she can handle that on a professional level, at least once she recognizes it and has come to accept it. But even if she manages that she may still be submissive on a personal level. Again, it’s not all that uncommon although we don’t always see it.”

“But how do we develop that?”

“Again, good question. I have told Cody, and have tried to reinforce it, that he needs to work on her making her own decisions. I mean, not decide for her, but tell her she has to decide. He’s aware that she’s letting him make decisions for her, and it’s starting to irritate him a little, so that’s a step in the right direction. That’s not going to fix everything, but it’s going to be a first step.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“Right, but it’s not going to solve the problem in the long run. I have to say, though, if she thinks she has to have a master, Cody is going to be a pretty good one. He’s not going to take advantage of her and he takes his responsibilities seriously, especially to her. We haven’t talked about it quite that way, but it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t want a slave, he wants a partner. If they stay together, they’re going to have an interesting balance between them.”

“Did they mention Janice offering to have sex with him if Cody wanted it?”

“Yes, both of them, but not together. That’s something else we need to work on. Cody is seeing her as a rape victim, and that she’s always going to be one. In a way that’s true, but she needs to grow out of it, just like he needs to grow out of seeing her that way. That’s not an unsolvable problem but it will take some time. I’ve seen it before and have some idea of what to do there. I’ll warn you right now, though, that it may take the two of them having sex to work out those issues.”

“Well, if it has to happen, it has to happen, but I’d just as soon it happened later than sooner.”

“It’s not going to happen soon, for a number of reasons. But it really needs to get worked out, since that is a hell of a strong bond between the two and there’s no reason it can’t be stronger. But it needs to be based on some different things, rather than sympathy and submissiveness. That’s really the big thing we need to work on.”

“You make it sound like they’re going to be a permanent item.”

“Don’t be surprised if it works out that way. In spite of everything, Cody is good for her, and I think she’s going to be good for him.”

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