1. Hospitals were bad, but rehab centers were worse. In a hospital, rotten stuff that happened to people at least got dealt with pronto and you ended up knowing what the outcome was going to be. You had a car wreck, you got carted to Emergency, you got patched up or operated on, you lived, or you died. It all took time, but the time ended. In a rehab center, though, everything went on and on. Especially if you had a stroke. That was what Seth Darrow was thinking as he watched his grandfather in one of the physical therapy rooms at Penn Cove Care, which was situated on a leafy side street in the old Victorian town of Coupeville on Whidbey Island. Seth and his dad had just engaged in a depressing meeting with the head of PT, a woman who'd spent twenty-five years in the military and who had a way of speaking that pretty much showed it. The news they'd been given had matched the weather outside, which was wintertime bleak with a sky pouring down a fifteenth straight day of steady rain accompanied by the occasional wind gust that was taking down aged alders and lofty Douglas firs across the island. "Mr. Darrow still isn't working with us," she announced to Seth and his dad ten seconds after they'd sat in front of her desk. Her name plate called her G. H. Fieldstone, and she'd introduced herself as George. Then she'd added doctor in front of it, just in case they'd considered getting friendly. "This has to change," she said. "This is a rehab facility, with the accent on rehab . If Mr. Darrow doesn't make more progress..." She did one of those lifting of the finger routines, which meant they were to fill in the blanks. She looked severely at Seth's dad, Rich. It seemed she thought he was thick as a board because she added, "This isn't a permanent living facility. You understand." She then suggested that they have a look for themselves from the hallway outside of the PT room where Ralph Darrow was working with the occupational therapist. That was what they were doing at the moment, and Seth's heart thudded painfully as he watched his grandfather. It had been more than four weeks since the stroke that had robbed Ralph Darrow of speech and the ability to use his right arm. His right leg had been affected, too, but not as badly as his arm. He'd more or less got back the use of the leg, which was good news, although he was still unsteady. But when it came to the arm, he was toast. The damage was done, the arm was finito, and what he had to do was learn how to be left handed. He also had to learn how to use his left hand to exercise his right arm so that it didn't develope something called contractures. If that happened, his right arm's muscles would totally freeze up as the muscles thickened. So once he got steadier on his feet, Ralph had PT sessions for his arm several times a day. He also had speech therapy sessions twice a day to handle the loss of language. The situation Ralph was in would've been a bummer for anyone, but for Seth's grandfather, who for the last fifty-two of his seventy-three years had been a carpenter, a gardener, and a forester who maintained well over one hundred acres of woodland, it was like a death blow. Excerpted from The Edge of the Light by Elizabeth George All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
