When Sophia comes home from school the next day, she tells Carol, "Dr. Eastman wants to see us in his office after lunch. I swear I didn't get in trouble at school! I don't know what it's about."
Carol explains that they'll be having family counseling. Dr. Eastman meets with them in his office, a small sitting area off his bedroom in the mansion. While mother and daughter sit side by side on the loveseat, he sits in a formal armchair with his legs crossed and a notepad on his knee. Dr. Eastman assures them that these family counseling sessions are strictly confidential.
Carol's grateful for the opportunity. It gives her a guided setting in which to apologize to her daughter for not defending her against the insults and intimidations of her father and for not having the courage to stand up to him and leave him. And it gives Sophia the permission to admit her resentments, her fears, and her hopes going forward.
"I just…I worry," Sophia says at one point. "I know you won't let anyone hurt me, but I worry you'll do things you don't want to do to protect me. Sometimes I think you used to just give in to Dad so he wouldn't hurt me. So I wouldn't have to suffer. I don't want you to do that with anyone anymore. Like…I mean…I don't want you to do things you don't want to do."
"It sounds like this is about something very specific," Dr. Eastman observes. "I realize it may be embarrassing, Sophia, but it would help if you were more direct with your mother."
Sophia laces her fingers together and looks down at the brown-and-white circular rug on Dr. Eastman's floor. "I don't think Daryl was returning your book. I know Ivan's mom and Ivan's sponsor…" Sophia looks up from the rug at Carol. "I mean, I'm not a little kid anymore. I understand some things. And it's not that I don't like Daryl. I do. And I know you want him to renew his sponsorship. But I just don't want you to do anything you don't want to do."
"I'm not, sweetie," Carol assures her. "Daryl and I are not doing anything like that. He hasn't asked anything like that of me, and even if he did, I promise I won't ever do anything I don't want to do with him. I promise."
Sophia lets out a sigh of relief.
"Daryl and I were just talking. That's all we were doing in there."
"But why in the bedroom?"
"I was upset about something. I went in there for a private cry. Daryl came in to comfort me."
"Oh," says Sophia. "Okay. That makes sense."
At the close of the session, Dr. Eastman tells them, "A history of abuse can take a serious toll on a person's self-esteem. I can see you're both already making strides in rebuilding that, probably because you've been forced to assert and test yourselves in this unfortunate world in which we've found ourselves. But there's still a lot of work to be done. I'd like to see you each individually, once a week. If that's okay with you, Carol?"
Carol agrees. Sophia's probably going to be much more open without her in the room, after all. As they're leaving, she tells Dr. Eastman, "This is probably a much more efficient way to do it than through martial arts lessons."
He smiles. "I have no idea what you mean."
[*]
Daryl doesn't have watch that evening, so he joins them at the table for dinner. There's venison steak tonight, from Daryl's sixteen-point buck, which has been processed, butchered, and distributed throughout the camp. The antlers now hang above the mantle, so Carol has moved the Thomas Kinkade painting – which Daryl was ready to put out with the trash - to her bedroom wall.
"You catch anything today?" Sophia asks before she takes a sip of her water.
"Just a possum I found in one of m'traps. And I got four Eastern gray squirrels. Tracking another deer, though," he says as he cuts into his steak. "They're the most bang for your buck."
"No pun intended?" Sophia asks.
Daryl chuckles. "I ain't clever 'nuff to come up with that pun."
"Mom did say you have the sense of humor of a 7th grade boy."
Daryl glance at Carol, who replies, "I did not say that. I believe I said a sixth grade boy." She smiles slightly and peers at him, waiting to see if he takes it as an insult or the gentle tease it's meant to be.
"Yeah," he says through his own smile, "well, sixth grade boys are fucking hilarious."
"Ivan's pretty funny," Sophia says. "But he'd just now be starting 9th grade in the old world. I'd be starting 8th."
"You kick his ass at speed chess yet?" Daryl asks.
"Not quite."
"Got to surprise him. Throw him off guard." He waves his fork. "Do some crazy ass move he never saw coming. Ivan's got six moves in his brain ready to go for six different possibilities – but not for the seventh. He won't be able to think fast enough if he ain't anticipating it."
Sophia shrugs. "I'll try it tonight." Then, looking at her mother, "May I be excused?" When Carol nods, Sophia stands and clears her plate before heading out the door.
As the door clicks shut, Daryl asks, "She got to ask you for permission when she takes a shit, too?"
"Excuse me?"
"May I be excused," he mimics Sophia.
"It never hurt anyone to be polite. And she's my child, not my peer."
He holds up his hands defensively. "Wasn't criticizing your parenting."
"It kind of sounds like you were."
"Sorry. Shouldn't be." Daryl pushes his empty plate forward on the table and draws his tea glass closer. "Guess it just means she respects you. I just ain't used to it. Wasn't exactly my family dynamics. Kids doing shit out of respect instead of out of fear."
"I guess it wasn't exactly hers either when it came to Ed."
"That your asshole dead husband?" he asks.
"Yes."
"But she respects you. You got a good kid there."
"I do," Carol agrees, allowing herself a little momentary pride as a mother, despite all her past failings as one, despite the guilt she still carries for not leaving Ed.
Daryl begins fishing for his cigarettes in his front shirt pocket. "Ain't you worried about that boy spending so much time with her, though?"
"They're good friends." Carol stands and clears his plate and hers to the sink. She pours the water from the kettle she heated earlier on top of the dishes in the sink. "And besides, Sophia says Ivan has a crush on Carina."
"Jefe better not find out."
Carol glances back at him as he rips the seal off from the fresh pack of cigarettes with his teeth. "What are you going to do when you run out of those?"
"Grow m'own tobacco. Roll 'em myself."
She turns back to the sink and begins scrubbing the plates. "You could just quit and spare your poor lungs."
"And what? Let the thrashers take me first? I'd rather cancer at me up."
"My mother died of lung cancer." She turns on the cold water to rinse the scrubbed paltes. "It wasn't pretty at all."
"My dad got liver cancer. Ain't surprisin'. Drank like a goddamn fish. Ain't what killed him, though. Crashed his bike straight into a semi. Must have been drunk off his ass."
"I'm sorry," Carol replies instinctively. What else do you say when someone tells you how their father died?
"Ain't nobody misses that asshole. How'd your daddy die?" He asks it like he's making typical small talk.
She turns off the water and turns around as she begins to dry a plate. "I don't know. For all I know, he's still alive. He left when my mother told him she was pregnant." Carol always suspected that, more than her mother's Catholicism, was why she always urged Carol to put off sex until marriage. "She did her best to raise me alone. I know it wasn't easy for her."
"Coward," Daryl mutters. "Even my father was man enough to marry my mama when he knocked 'er up." He raps his fingers on the pack of cigarettes he's lain on the table. "'Course, might have been better for everyone if he'd just split on 'er."
"But then you wouldn't have been born. You're the baby of the family, right?"
"Yeah." He worms a cigarette out of the pack with a single fingertip. "Hell, still might have been better for everyone."
She hates that he says that. It's a feeling she's had herself far too often. "Not for me it wouldn't have been. I, for one, am glad to have met you."
"Pfft." But he peers at her as he's trying to gauge how much she means it.
She glances at the living room furniture. "I guess I just need to get used to the gaudy grandma furniture, huh?"
"Shit. Forgot about that."
"It's okay. I know you're too busy to go on any runs now." She turns and puts the plate in the cupboard.
"Nah, nah, we'll go. I ain't got watch or staff practice Wednesday night, and I should have bagged a deer by Tuesday. You clear to go Wednesday?"
She turns around and sees he's slipped the cigarette between his lips. "I have warehouse duty in the morning, but I'm done at noon. And I don't have any community assignments the next morning."
"A'right. Leave at noon on Wednesday then. Pencil it in on your little calendar."
"How do you know about my calendar?"
"You left it on the coffee table."
She glances at the living room and sees it lying there on the coffee table. "Oh."
"Told you I'd stay out of your shit from now on." The chair scrapes across the floor as he stands.
"Martial arts lessons tonight?" Carol asks.
"Mhmhm." As he heads for the door, he says, "Thanks for the grub. It was – "
"- Fucking fantastic," she finishes for him.
"Well, I was gonna give you a detailed five-star review, but if that's how you insist on summarizing it, fine." He opens the door, pauses to light his cigarette, and says, "Seem like a lazy description if you ask me." And then he's out the door, leaving her smiling at the sink.
[*]
The twice-monthly "cabinet rations" come in the morning, and Carol spends some time organizing the largesse. There's dried beans, rice, pasta, flour, sugar, cornmeal, and assorted canned fruits and vegetables and soups. In addition to the Old World food, there's a ziplock bag of dried venison jerky, probably from one of Daryl's past kills, and a mason jar of fish that has been caught, smoked, and canned at Copper Creek. The rations don't just include food, but five gallons of gasoline, a quart of kerosene, toothpaste, toilet paper, and a pack of maxi pads. Carol supposes Daryl didn't get that before she and Sophia were living with him, and Sophia will appreciate the modern convenience. She got her first period three months ago while they were surviving house to house, and all they found were tampons, which Sophia was not willing to attempt.
Carol has warehouse duty in the morning, and at lunch, Sophia tells her Jefe wants to see her in her office at two. "Did she say why?" Carol asks.
"No. She just asked me to pass on the message."
The butler shows Carol to the library when she arrives ten minutes ahead of the designated time. The sign outside has already been turned to closed. Jefe is not at work on her files this time. She's busy cleaning a rifle on her desk instead. She's dressed sharply, as usual, but also practically. As Arthur announces Carol, Jefe looks up from her firearm and says, "You're early."
"My mother always used to say if you're not early, you're late," Carol replies as she walks toward the familiar wine-colored chair. Behind her, Arthur shuts the library door. "We were always ten minutes early to church."
Jefe quickly reassembles her rifle with a click, click, click and leans it against the side of her desk.
"I need to learn to assemble a gun that fast," Carol says as she sits down.
"My father taught me to use firearms at a young age," Jefe replies. "I grew up on a ranch in Texas. There were a lot of rattlesnakes."
This might well be the first piece of personal information the woman has ever shared with her. "Your parents owned a ranch?"
"Hardly. My father was a farmhand. He and I lived in the house barn with six other migrant families." No mention of a mother, Carol notes. "My father was poor. I was determined not to be."
Carol looks around the expansive library. "It seems you succeeded."
"I dragged Copper Creek Pastures back from the brink of bankruptcy. I saved it, only to turn around and watch it half destroyed by thrashers. It's a shadow of what it once was."
"It sustains the last remnants of a civilization," Carol replies. "I'd say it's probably more important than it ever was."
"I see you're a glass half full kind of person."
"I try to be," Carol replies. "Sophia said you wanted to see me?"
"Daryl told me he wants to take you on a private supply run to get some new furniture." Jefe looks at Carol rather coolly as she delivers these words. "That you two plan to leave in the early afternoon on Wednesday and return sometime on Thursday."
"Yes."
Jefe removes her glasses from her nose, folds them, and lays them to the side. "I have to say, I wish you hadn't talked him into that. It seems to me a highly frivolous use of resources in terms of gasoline and oil and a completely unnecessary risk. Every supply run contains an inherent element of danger, which is a fair trade-off when we're gathering supplies to support the community. But not for furniture."
"I didn't talk Daryl into anything. He suggested it."
She laughs sharply. "Daryl? Daryl wants to go furniture shopping? He's the one whose got a sudden bug to do some interior decorating?"
"He…I mentioned something about the furniture, and he suggested it. I never asked."
Jefe looks at her skeptically. "Well, he wanted to sign out a community pick-up truck for the run. I refused to authorize it."
"Oh?" Jefe really doesn't like the idea of this private supply run, Carol thinks.
"But he told me he'd just trade DeShawn something to borrow his farm truck. DeShawn owns that. Daryl's determined to make this run" - she looks Carol over - "for whatever reason. I can't stop him, but maybe you can."
Carol doesn't want to stop him. Suddenly, she wants to go on this supply run more than ever. "I don't see how. Like I said, he suggested it. And I certainly have less authority over him than you do."
"Well, there's authority, and then there's influence."
"I don't see what the problem is. It won't be a wasteful trip. I'm sure we'll look for other supplies while we're out there, not just the furniture."
"There won't be room for a great deal more when three-quarters of the bed is occupied by furniture."
"DeShawn's truck is a big one," Carol assures her. "And we'll be selective with the space that's left and fill it with the most valuable goods we find."
Jefe sighs. "So it's decided then. You're both determined. And your plan is to leave Sophia home alone in the cottage?"
Carol bristles. Is this woman questioning her parenting now? "She's thirteen. She's very mature. And Nadia is right next door and has agreed to check in on her."
Jefe sits back in her chair, which bounces slightly as she does. "Well, there's no need for her to be alone. Carina's been begging me for a sleepover with Sophia. My daughter has a trundle bed in her room in our penthouse suite. Sophia can sleep on that. I'm sure they'll chatter half the night, but I suppose that's what girls do."
"Oh." Carol wasn't expecting that invitation. "I…I'm sure Sophia would love that."
"Does she have a bathing suit?"
"I…um…no."
"She can probably borrow one of Carina's older ones."
Confused, Carol asks, "Does the mansion have a pool?"
Jefe looks at Carol like she's an idiot. "We don't waste resources maintaining the pool. There's one on the roof, but we use it for collecting and storing rainwater now. Carina wants to go wading in the stream, of course."
"Oh."
"Monty will be on guard the whole time. There's an area where it's deep enough for them to swim. I don't know why they call it a creek. It's much too deep and wide for that. But where the bottom drops, it's about four-and-a-half feet. Monty will dredge the area for sunken thrashers first, make sure there's nothing in there. They'll have a picnic lunch, swim, sun, then head home."
Carol supposes Ryan was right. It pays to be friends with the boss's daughter. You even get your own private security detail and a day at the shore. "That sounds lovely. And you'll be joining them?"
"I have much too much work to do that, but Monty will supervise. He's trustworthy. And he's Carina's uncle."
"He's your brother?" Carol asks in surprise.
"No. He's Carina's father's brother. I was an only child. Carina's father died at the start. He was the first shell I had to put down."
"That must have been awful."
Jefe shrugs. "I suppose it would be the socially acceptable thing to say I struggled to blow the brains out of his shell, but that would be a lie. We'd been divorced five years at that point. He cheated on me with a parade of women. We still had to work together, though. He was a cowboy. I always did have a thing for the bad boys, to my detriment."
Carol wants to ask if that's why she finds Daryl so appealing, if Jefe thinks he's a bad boy, but she judiciously keeps her mouth shut.
"Monty's not like his brother, though," Jefe continues. "He's been faithfully married for fourteen years. I think you've met his wife. Valeria. She delivers the wild game."
"Yes, we've met. And Sophia's going to have a blast. I appreciate the invitation."
"They're going to have a hard time staying awake at school in the morning. I wouldn't have allowed Carina to have weekday sleepovers in the old world."
Ed didn't allow Sophia to go to any sleepovers at all in the old world. Girls talk at sleepovers. Sophia might have talked about the abuse she'd seen. "We're both only children," Carol tells Jefe. "And neither of us had poster boys for husbands. And we're both trying our best to raise teenage daughters. We're really not so different, you and I."
"Who said we were?" Jefe stands and grabs her rifle. "I'm flesh and blood, just like everyone else. But in my position, it's best not to acknowledge the fact too often." She slings the rifle over her shoulder. "I need to get to the range. You can see yourself out."