The Edge of the Light (12 page)

W
hen Seth drove into Coupeville after being given Steph Vanderslip's approval on the work they'd done to his grandfather's house, he had Becca and Prynne with him. They were on their way to Penn Cove Care to tell Grand how things were going to be set up, with the home health care aides seeing to his basic needs and Prynne and Becca there in the house to reassure him that he wouldn't be solely in the hands of strangers.

They also needed to make sure Grand knew that he had to do maximum work in physical therapy and he had to keep making efforts to get his language skills back once they got him home. Otherwise, they'd be into another fight with Aunt Brenda about assisted living.

At Penn Cove Care, they got out into a dazzling day. The air was frigid because there were no clouds, but they had a crystalline view of Mount Baker to the east, with its snowcapped volcanic sides reaching up into a pure blue sky. The air was sharp with scents from Penn Cove: salt water, seaweed, and shellfish. It was mussel season. The seagulls swooping down near the town's long pier seemed to be anticipating this.

Prynne looped a shopping bag over her arm, purchases that she and Seth had made at Good Cheer Thrift store and in the children's section of the bookshop on First Street in Langley. What they'd bought comprised goodies for Ralph, and part of the reason they'd come to Coupeville was to explain them to him.

Inside Penn Cove Care, they trooped to Ralph's room. Finding it empty, Seth led them to the physical therapy wing. But he wasn't there, either. Seth's first thought was a scary one: that Grand had suffered another stroke.

“Let's check at reception,” Prynne suggested “Maybe they've taken a bunch of people on an outing or something.”

It turned out that Ralph was on an outing, all right. But he was the only patient taking part in it. At reception they learned from a bespectacled woman with a very large mole on the side of her nose that “Mr. Darrow's daughter has taken him down to Freeland to have a look at The Cedars.”

Seth knew exactly what The Cedars was: assisted living. “But the house's is approved,” he said. “That lady Steph, she came to look it over. She said it was fine. She said it was safe.” Seth could hear his panic, and he knew his companions heard it, too, because he felt Prynne link her hand with his. Becca's breathing became deep and steady.

The receptionist said, “Well, there appears to be some sort of miscommunication among you.”

“Is she taking him there to check him in or something?” Seth demanded.

“As far as I know it's merely a visit so that he can see what it's like. If you'd like to wait . . . ? They've been gone for an hour and they'll probably return before this hour's up.”

The last thing Seth wanted to do was wait. He trusted his aunt like he trusted a rattlesnake. He had to get to the car.

Prynne and Becca followed him. He punched his dad's phone number into his cell phone, and when Rich answered with, “What's up, Seth?” the words tumbled out so fast that Rich had to tell him to slow down, to start over, to make himself clear. Once Seth had done so, his father's reply was reassuring. “I'm on it,” he said. “Let me handle this, Seth. I'll be in touch.”

Seth knew that his dad would head directly to Freeland, where The Cedars occupied a piece of prime real estate overlooking Holmes Harbor, a huge body of water shaped like a toe-dancer's leg kicking its way south toward Mutiny Bay. He also knew that his dad considered him something of a hothead and thought that this situation called for cooler heads prevailing. But there was no way that he was going to back off. He told Prynne and Becca to get in the car, because they were going to The Cedars.

Freeland wasn't nearby. Far closer to the village of Langley than it was to Coupeville, it stood at the big toe of the dancer's foot. They had to charge south down the island's only highway to get there, passing through forest and winter-bare farmland, wetlands, and lakes. When they got to the town, Seth pressed through it and onto the road that surged up the harbor on the west side of the water. He opened up the speed here, and because of this, he nearly missed the turn through the wrought iron gates
that would take them onto the grounds of The Cedars.

They piled out of the car the second Seth had it parked. No time to look for a suitable space, he just left it in the portico of The Cedars' main building, a hospital-like affair on three levels, behind which the waters of Holmes Harbor placidly gleamed. He charged inside with Prynne and Becca fast on his heels.

He'd already seen his aunt's Lexus. It was hard to miss, since she'd parked the thing overlapping two visitors' spaces so no one could mar its perfect paint job. Also in the visitors' parking was his father's pickup.

Inside, the place was all silence, hardwood floors, carefully arranged furniture, the strong scent of lavender, and a fireplace in which a phony fire flickered. Seth dimly heard someone say, “May I help you?” but he didn't need help. For the first thing he saw was a glass-windowed conference room and within that room sat his aunt, his dad, his grandfather in a wheelchair, and some lady in a business suit talking to all of them.

Seth burst in on them. He heard “. . . a compromise because a fight over guardianship can't be what you want.” It was the business suit lady speaking. She started when Seth broke into the room. She said, “I beg your—”

Rich said sharply, “I told you I'd handle this, Seth.”

Seth said, “She's
not
packing him into this place. He's not a discard. He's a human being.”

Aunt Brenda said, “How dare you even suggest—”

“You think we don't know what you got in mind? You're pretty stupid, Aunt Brenda.”

Rich stood. “You need to leave.”

“Not without Grand.” Seth went to his grandfather's wheelchair. Grand was slumped to one side and his good fist was clenched in a frozen position. “You guys are going to give him another stroke. I'm taking him outa here.”

Brenda stood, too. “He hasn't been discharged from Penn Cove Care. You're not taking him anywhere.”

“Stop me,” Seth said. “Call the cops.”

He went to Ralph and released the brake on the wheelchair. His father said to him, “Don't make this worse.”

Seth said, “You think he likes sitting here while you guys argue over him like he's a prize steer or something? I don't think so. Come on, Grand.” Seth wheeled him from the room.

He took Ralph over to the fireplace. He knew his grandfather scorned false fires, but it seemed more soothing than putting him anywhere near the conference room, from which raised voices could easily be heard.

Becca and Prynne joined him on the hearth, where he seated himself to face his grandfather. Becca, he saw, had removed her earbud. He figured the whole deal had upset her and she pretty much didn't want to hear what was going to be said next. He couldn't blame her.

He said, “Here's what's happening, Grand. We've fixed your house so you can go home, this lady from the hospital checked it out, and Dad's hiring two health care people to be with you. But not alone, okay? Prynne'll will be with you daytimes, Becca will be with you afternoon and nighttimes, and me and Prynne
or Dad will be with you on weekends. No one's putting you in assisted living.”

Ralph's head righted itself, but his fist did not unclench. Seth put his hand over that tight ball of bones and flesh, and he felt Becca move closer to Grand.

She said to Ralph, “That okay with you, Grand? Or d'you think”—and to Seth, “I gotta ask him this, okay?”—and back to Grand, “or d'you think you might do better here?”

“No way,” Seth said to her. And to his grandfather, “You got to keep up with the physical therapy and you
got
to do stuff to get better with language. These health guys, they'll take you to your appointments and we got some stuff to help you out with language, too. But here's what's happening. You probably already figured it out, but I'll say it anyway. Aunt Brenda wants to get control: of you, of your land, of where you live, of everything. Me and Dad? We're fighting her, but you got to fight her, too.”

Ralph didn't move. There was no nod of understanding, nor did he make an attempt to speak.

Becca seemed to be studying his face, though, and what she apparently read on his features wasn't exactly what Seth wanted to hear. She rose to her feet and gestured Seth to walk away from the wheelchair with her. When they had some distance, she said to him quietly, “Losing everything like he has, Seth? I think . . . Well, it seems like he's not making the kind of progress everyone wants him to make because . . . I think he's waiting to die.”

“No way. He's gonna get better if we take him home.”

W
hen Seth made the turn off Newman Road and up the incline that was Ralph Darrow's driveway, the first thing Becca saw was Derric's Forester in the parking area. As Prynne hopped out of the car so that Becca could alight, the second thing she saw was Derric himself. He'd just climbed the path that led up from the house, circling round the small hill that kept the house out of view. He smiled that two-hundred-watt smile of his when he saw them, saying, “Hey. Where've you guys been?”

“Coupeville,” Seth said. “Then Freeland. Setting everything up for Grand to come home, including having an epic fight with my aunt.”

“Harsh,” Derric said.

Becca went to him. He pulled her into a bear hug and said over her head to Prynne, “Everything set up? You here permanently now?”

“I'm here,” she told him. “I got to go back for my Vespa, though.”

“That thing safe for the highway?” Derric asked as Becca put her earbud in.

“Sure. Seth says no, but if I c'n ride it around Quimper Peninsula, I c'n sure as heck ride it around here. And”—she shot an amused look at Seth—“don't you argue, buddy. I need my wheels.”

Becca drew a sudden breath that stabbed. The sensation that came over her was unexpected, a brief rush of wind that wasn't wind at all but something that quickly transformed in her vision to the image of driving a vehicle to the side of the road in front of a small ramshackle house. This was fronted by shrubbery long gone without pruning and a wooden archway that tilted to one side with a heavy growth of wisteria threatening to take it down. She had the sensation of walking through that archway, of seeing the house become more visible, of striding down a path that led to the corner of the building. Then—

“You okay?”

Derric's question cut into the vision, and Becca was back with the others. Prynne and Seth were watching her curiously. The place she'd seen must have been, she thought, where Prynne lived. Her words had prompted it somehow. She said to Derric, “I'm starving. I got light in the head for a sec.”

“You guys chow down,” Seth said. “We gotta get going. I'll let you know when everything's a go for Grand, Beck. We'll rock this situation.”

Becca had her doubts about that. Still, she nodded. Prynne got back into the VW, and they took off. Becca returned Seth's wave, and then looked at Derric. “It is
so
good to see you,” she told him.

“I was bummed when there was no one home,” he replied. “I
left you a note. Sort of a poor-me-wah-wah-wah-where-are-you-and-when're-you-getting-a-cell-phone-for-God's-sake.”

She smiled at the description. “Come on, I got some food in the slow cooker.” She led the way, saying over her shoulder, “Did you figure I was with Seth, trying to work on this family thing he has going on with Grand?”

“I didn't figure anything. Just that you weren't here and I wanted to see you.” As they walked up the new ramp onto the porch, he added, “
Needed
to see you is more like it.”

Becca saw his note on the door, folded into the small crack between the door and the jamb. She unfolded it, read it, and said, “I dunno. Doesn't sound like wah-wah-wah to me. But Rejoice . . . ?” She shoved the note into her pocket as she dug for her house keys. He'd said in the note that he needed to talk to her about Rejoice.
Important
, he said.
Disaster looming
.

She opened the door and shoved her shoulder against it. It was tough to open in the winter when the damp made it swell. Derric helped her, his hands reaching above her head in a way that always reminded her how much taller he was than she.

Inside, the place was cold although the air held the fragrance of a savory stew. Becca pointed out that the fire was laid in the great stone fireplace, and if Derric would light it, she'd check on what she had in the slow cooker. Lucky for her, she'd told Derric some weeks into Ralph Darrow's hospitalization and recuperation, Grand had a freezer filled with beef, chicken, and fish, as well as a root cellar at the side of the house that held enough root veggies to last her through a nuclear holocaust. So feeding
herself hadn't been a problem, although she didn't much like eating alone.

When she rejoined him, Becca saw that he had a decent blaze going. He was sitting on the hearth with his back to it, but he hadn't yet removed his parka. Neither had she. The house had a heat pump, but she didn't keep it running when she wasn't there. It took a while to get the structure warm. In the meantime, the fire would do. She sat next to him, put her head on his shoulder, and twined her fingers with his.

“So what's up?” she asked.

“Oh, hell, what
isn't
?” Derric's tone suggested that Rejoice had probably taken matters another step forward in her dispute with her parents about when she was going to be allowed to do what in her life.

Derric had already told Becca that the girl was pressing her mom and dad about their dating rule: no dates on her own with a boy until she was sixteen. When Derric had eaten lunch with the Vicklands on that Sunday he'd gone to La Conner on his own, she'd announced to all present that “me and Derric need some
alone
time. It's only right. And it's not like we're gonna
do
anything, Mom.” She said her parents' restrictions were “totally and absolutely unfair 'cause I can't even be alone with a boy unless we're, like, totally visible to you. Like sitting on the front porch in broad daylight. And then these guys make fun of me.”

“These guys” were her siblings. They were out and about with boyfriends and girlfriends and it wasn't
fair
that she had to wait. “They had to wait, too” did not appease her.

Her dad told her at that Sunday lunch that if Derric wanted
to visit, it was fine. If he wanted to take her some place, it was also fine.
But
, he'd added with a stern look that attempted to telegraph there would be no further discussion because he was tired of repeatedly laying down the law to his daughter, she could only go with Derric if someone else went along, too. “One of your sisters can go or one of your brothers,” he told her. Then he added meaningfully, “Or Derric can bring his girlfriend Becca.”

Rejoice had bristled at that and announced, “Becca is his
friend
, Dad, not his girlfriend,” and as Derric was about to correct her, Jeff Vickland said, “She's a girl. She's his friend. Ergo, she's his girlfriend. And the topic is closed.”

Derric concluded the story with, “And now there's this,” as he took his iPhone from his pocket. He tapped it a few times and handed it over to Becca. She saw that it was a picture of Rejoice, a selfie she'd taken with a background of one of the family's vast tulip fields behind her, the green of the sprouting bulbs making knitted furrows that extended virtually to the horizon.

She was grinning the same grin that Derric possessed, the one that made her resemble him so much that Becca was continually amazed that Rejoice's family hadn't figured out he was her brother yet. Now, though, there was going to be little doubt about the matter. For Rejoice had shaved her head, like his, in the manner of the girls in the Kampala orphanage from which they had both been adopted.

“Looks like you've got trouble,” Becca told him.

Derric said, taking the iPhone back from her, “I guess I can't hope that her mom and dad are like white people who say everyone black looks the same to them.”

“I guess you can't,” Becca said.

He observed the picture. “At least she's finally getting into being African,” he pointed out hopefully.

“Uh, Der . . . I don't think that's what she's getting into.”

Derric was quiet for a moment. The fire popped behind them. He removed his parka. She did the same. He finally said, “Well, I'm going to
pretend
that's what she's getting into. Like ‘Hey, girl, now you're doing it right. Ugandans rock!' Something like that.”

“And then what?” Becca asked him.

“Get her some African scarves and clothes and whatever?”

“Okay. And
then
what?”

He shoved the phone into his pocket. “Absolute hell if I know,” he said.

• • •

IT WAS TWO
days later when Becca went into the high school library, cutting short her lunchtime in order to log on to one of the computers there. Derric's problem with Rejoice aside, she had her own issues. So she went first to her e-mail account to see if there was anything new from Parker Natalia. When she saw that there was, her heart did its usual loud thump that heralded hope.

From Parker's e-mail, she learned that he'd given the word about Laurel Armstrong to the cop he knew who had contacts in Canadian immigration. The cop, Parker said, would check things out. But then he added that it might come down to Becca traveling up to Nelson herself, maybe giving an interview about Laurel Armstrong to the paper or something like that.

Becca had to get him away from that idea fast. She had no passport, and although she did have a copy of Rebecca Dolores King's birth certificate, it was only a copy and not the original. She wondered if, in these days of terrorists, a simple copy would suffice to get someone a passport. She doubted it.

She went from her e-mail to Google, and there she typed in Jeff Corrie's name. There were no new developments, so she checked out the reporter Olivia Bolding's progress on whatever story she might be attempting to write about the missing Hannah Armstrong.

There, her anxiety spiked when she saw that Olivia Bolding wasn't about to let the Hannah Armstrong dog die. Since Becca had last been on the computer in Langley's library to see what the reporter was up to, Olivia Bolding had been to Hannah Armstrong's high school, from which she'd disappeared early in her freshman year. There, she'd interviewed Hannah's teachers, most of whom had dutifully declared Hannah to be an exemplary student. She'd also unearthed Hannah's freshman picture, which was several years more recent than the pictures Jeff Corrie had earlier supplied the newspapers. Becca stared at the picture and tried to see in it evidence of who she was now.

Hannah Armstrong had been fat.
Chubby
was only a euphemism for triple chins and thunder thighs. She'd worn her hair long but had done nothing with it, other than to fasten it with a barrette at the back of her head. It was also strawberry blond. Or strawberry blondish. It wasn't at all what it had been altered to by the time she'd arrived on Whidbey Island as Becca King.

Becca King had come to Whidbey as fat as Hannah but, through the necessity of getting around on a bike, she had eventually become slim and athletic. Her hair had been dyed hideous Goth black, but that, too, had changed along with the shedding of the weight. Now her hair was light brown, and it capped her head. And although she still wore the same phony glasses she'd had on upon her arrival on the island, she'd backed way off on the amount of makeup she'd once used. She could, she'd decided a few months earlier, only keep up the general hideousness of her appearance so long before she couldn't stand it any longer.

Now, she wanted to believe, and she
had
to believe, that she no longer resembled the Hannah Armstrong who'd disappeared from San Diego. So she decided that this was indeed the case because at the moment, what other choice did she have?