The Arms of a Better Man by Indiana Wake

Author:Indiana Wake [Wake, Indiana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fair Havens Books
Published: 2018-10-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

“It’s not getting any better is it, Doc?” Arlen spoke as he sat slumped in the chair in Dr. Brown’s consulting office.

“Not yet, Arlen, but we’ve only just begun, haven’t we?” Doc Brown’s grey hair was thick and wild, standing up in rough tufts all over the place, with his eyebrows matching perfectly.

Ordinarily, it would have given Arlen some silent, harmless amusement, but his humor seemed to have deserted him again.

“I’ve done the exercises every day, just as you said.”

“And you’ve been rubbing in the salve?”

“I have, despite the god-awful smell.” Doc Brown smiled at him sadly.

“You know what they say, the worse the stuff smells, the better it is for you.” Doc leaned back in his chair and laced his hands over his medium-sized paunch. “And how much walking are you doing?”

“I guess about a mile a day.”

“In one go?”

“No, I couldn’t manage that. I just mean I generally walk about a mile a day going backwards and forwards, taking a walk outside the ranch house, occasionally around town, that kind of thing.”

“I think you need to concentrate on walking a bit more. Don’t count the backwards and forwards stuff, just the concentrated walking.”

“All right, I sure will give it a go,” Arlen said, but felt the determination draining from him.

It felt so good in the last days, enjoying life just a little better than he had done when he’d first arrived home. And he knew that his friendship with Katie had a lot to do with it.

She really was kind of strange, reticent one minute and oddly direct the next, but she had certainly kept him entertained whenever he’d seen her. And he’d naively thought that his leg would follow suit, that it would somehow keep step with his general mood and improve by degrees just as his mood had done.

And so, to hear that all his effort had been in vain was something of a blow.

“And you’re going to need to increase the exercises.” Doc Brown went on. “Do exactly what you’re doing in just the way I told you but do it twice a day instead of once. Do the whole routine in the morning before you start your day and again mid-afternoon or early evening. Just don’t do it right before going to bed, the exercise will keep you awake.”

“The exercises take an hour as it is,” Arlen said, and realized he sounded as if he was complaining. “Not to mention the fact that they’re painful.”

“They’re going to be painful until that muscle starts to build. You’ve been a long time now without using that leg properly, and the muscle has all but disappeared. But it will come back again, I promise you that.” Doc Brown was such a kindly man, the only doctor who had ever treated him apart from the desperate medics on the battlefield, and Arlen really did trust him.

But it didn’t make him feel any better, not then. He just felt dejected.

“Well, thanks, Doc.” Arlen got to his feet.

“Come back to me in four weeks, I reckon if you stick to it we’ll see some progress then.

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