She began seeing Dan, the psychiatrist she and Tina had initially consulted many years ago when they’d been having problems in their relationship, and whom they’d each continued to consult with from time to time, regarding their individual issues.

As she reflected further on the cheery sunbeam that had lit up their room this morning, however, she thought it had been nearly 8 weeks since the incident and she felt she was getting mentally and emotionally stronger, and had successfully gotten off her pain management routine, able to sleep uninterrupted through the night, finally.  At first, the sessions with Dan had been difficult, as Bette had instinctively wanted to harness the anger she’d felt about being attacked, and use it to counteract her sense of powerlessness against the forces that had been unleashed on her and her family.   She’d wanted use the deep anger she’d felt to fuel her quest to find out who was behind all this, and inflict on them similar harm.

But she realized that she was not getting stronger by holding on to this anger.  Rather, she was getting weaker.  And she was not healing well.  All the anger was doing was delaying her recovery.  It was a poisonous feeling, and it was hurting her, and hurting Tina, too, in some way.

Slowly, with Tina beside her, she’d worked with Dan to move past what had happened.  Meanwhile, it helped that the unknown group behind the attack had kept their word and had left her and her family alone, as the woman Diane had talked to had promised they would.

At some point, Bette told herself she would be able to resume trying to figure out everything that had happened.  Once she’d attained some distance from it, and regain an intellectual, arms-length perspective.  That would be for later, when she was all the way back.    For now, she was surprised to find she’d become increasingly content to let sleeping dogs lie.

One thing that gave her some comfort that she had time to plan what she could do was a discovery she’d made of a likely vulnerability in her adversaries.

This happened when the woman Diane had called in the immediate aftermath of the crash had called Bette one morning after Tina had left for work and Christy had taken Angie to pre-school.  Bette had been alone in their duplex, about to get ready for a rehab session with a physical therapist who was scheduled to arrive shortly, when the woman called.