Susan watched between her spread feet, as heunbuckled the ankle strap of each ankle, removing them then moving to the side of the table again. He open...d another drawer, and placing the ankle cuffs inside, removed two other leather straps. Moving back to the foot of the table, Susan, with her head raised by the pillow beneath, could easily see Peter placing the first strap under the brace of the stirrup, then looping it easily over her left ankle. He buckled it tightly, and her leg was solidly. He told me that he would make a call to Coach Ray in a few weeks to make sure that everything was going forward for me to compete the following season. I thanked him for the concern, told him I would see him again soon and left for home.Upon arriving home, I loaded my clean clothes into my locker, took the dirty clothes to the laundry room and started a load in the washer. The one good thing about being away at school was you did learn to take care of yourself. By the time Ashley had gotten. “What do you do for a living, Ms. Ridgeland?”“Please, call me Juniper,” the woman says. “I am actually a pharmacist.”“Oh wow,” Emma says. A little knowledge in that field ought to come in handy. “How long have you done that?”Juniper smiles and says, “Fourteen years now.”“So you must have all kinds of knowledge of chemicals and drugs and such.”The older woman laughs lightly. “Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I kind of have to so that I can help people and make sure they don’t have any bad drug. I was feeling lonely, I guess, and AJ ... I know this sounds terrible, but because of him, the man who hurt me all those years was gone, I was thankful for that." She stopped, feeling awful that she was glad Frank was dead. Her daughter surprised her."I understand, Mamma. "I'm glad he's gone too. I don't feel bad about that. He did terrible things to you, and I know he would have done them to me too. He told me he was going to do them. He didn't say exactly what they were, but I knew it hurt.