The Ledge

by Lesley Choyce

  “Hey, you’re not trying to set me up with your sister, are you?” I joked.

  He gave me a gentle smack to the head. “Definitely not. Now tell me yes or no so I can report back to my mother. And I’m warning you, she won’t take no for an answer.”

  “No then.”

  “Good. I’ll see you Sunday at four o’clock. I’ll text you the address.”

  I didn’t know what to expect. In fact, I was more than a little nervous. I thought of taking a couple of the pills prescribed for my anxiety but decided against it. Sometimes they made me light-headed, which was okay for playing video games but not good for socializing.

  My mom drove me there and made a quick exit as soon as the hellos were over at the door. “I’ll pick you up whenever you call,” she said. Good old mom.

  This was the first time I’d seen Ahmad in clothes other than his official hospital greens. He had his hair slicked back and was wearing a boldly colored shirt. His mother, a very short woman, was wearing an equally bold scarf on her head. She walked up to me and held my face in her hands for what seemed like a long time. “Come in,” she said, her dark, piercing eyes looking straight into mine. “We are honored to have you as a guest.”

  “Let him go, Mother,” Ahmad said. “Nick came here to eat.” And then he turned to me. “I hope you are hungry.”

  I wasn’t. That was one of the downsides of my condition and sometimes the drugs. “I’m famished,” I said, using a big word I’d heard in an English movie.

  “Then come. Sit,” Ahmad said and then slapped his head. It was the “sit” part, I guessed. Funny that even someone in his occupation would accidentally slip up.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  There was a clear path to the dining-room table and a place for me to tuck in. It was the strangest thing, but when I pulled up I hit my foot against a table leg. And it hurt. Ouch. It really hurt.

  I felt pain in my foot. That had not happened since the accident.

  I didn’t have a chance to think more about it or say anything to Ahmad, because just then Ahmad’s sister walked into the room, carrying two full bowls of food. “This is my sister, Eva,” said Ahmad. Eva was tall and and had her mother’s deep dark eyes. Her hair, not covered with a scarf, hung down to her shoulders.

  I nodded a hello. Eva looked as uncomfortable as I was, maybe more. Her mother followed with more plates of food. None of it looked familiar, but I decided not to ask what anything was.

  Ahmad must have realized that the dishes were all new to me, because he started pointing and naming each one. “Here,” he said, leaning over and scooping different things onto my plate. “Try a bit of everything.”

  It all tasted strange but was really, really good. I found my appetite returning. Ahmad’s mother, who insisted I call her Sidra, looked pleased that I kept shoveling in food.

  “Here,” said Ahmad. “You must try this on your falafel.” He spooned some kind of red sauce onto my plate. “Taste,” he instructed.

  I dutifully tasted. It was spicy—so spicy my mouth began to burn. Whatever it was, it was hotter than any chili sauce I had ever tasted.

  Everyone was clearly amused by my reaction. Eva leaned across the table and handed me a glass of water. “You should not have trusted my brother,” she said with a smile. “He gave you muhammarah—a hot-pepper dish from our home. He should not have done that.”

  No, he shouldn’t have. I couldn’t speak. My nose was burning now, and my eyes were watering. Sidra could not help but laugh now. Ahmad, who’d never really given an indication of having even the slightest sense of humor, seemed quite proud of himself. As I began to recover, I realized that the pepper joke was a good thing. A kind of test. A way of saying, You are new here, but we tease you as a way of welcoming you.

  I drank most of the water and then inched my chair a tiny bit closer to the table so I wouldn’t spill any food. I hit my foot on the table leg again and felt a small amount of pain. What was that about?

  Eva distracted me with questions about school—mostly ones I didn’t want to answer. Her way of speaking was very formal, like Ahmad’s, but she seemed genuinely interested. When there was a pause in the conversation, I tried to keep up my end by asking about a dish I hadn’t tried yet. It looked like green beans mixed with olives.

  Ahmad gave me a stunned look. “You’ve never seen beans before? You’ve never seen olives?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “But nothing. We call it beans with olives. Here,” he said leaning toward me. “Try some.”

  I looked suspiciously at the dish he was holding out. “Uh…I’m a bit afraid to,” I said.

  Ahmad laughed and then made a show of asking his mother, “Have you ever seen anyone afraid of beans and olives?”

  “Shush,” said Sidra, turning to me. “It has garlic and lemon. Very good. You should try it.”

  So I did, and it was delicious. In fact, the whole meal was. I hadn’t really been interested in food since—well, you know. But all these new flavors were opening a door for me.

  Chapter Nine

  After the main meal there were cakes and sweet tea. Eva wanted to talk to me about surfing. I think she had been prompted by Ahmad to do so. I, however, didn’t want to talk about surfing or even think about it. I tried to change the subject.

  “Did you all come to this country together, at the same time?” I asked.

  Ahmad lowered his head. Eva looked away. Only Sidra looked straight at me as she took a deep breath. “My other son, Tariq, was killed when a missile hit his school. It was the middle of the day.”

  And then silence.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” I said. “Who did this?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. We never found out. It could have been the rebels or it could have been the military. It doesn’t matter now.”

  “No, it doesn’t matter,” Ahmad echoed.

  I wanted to say it would have damn well mattered to me, but I knew it wasn’t for me to comment on such a sensitive topic.

  “We loved Tariq very much,” Ahmad’s mother said. “He was only twelve.” I watched as her eyes teared up.

  Eva noticed too and spoke to fill the silence. “Right after Tariq was killed, our father secured passage for us on a boat headed to a Greek island. From there we made our way here. He stayed behind to help others escape. We have heard from him recently. He is still in Syria but has been detained. We are hoping…” She trailed off.

  “And we have a cousin,” she added after a moment, obviously wanting to get off the topic of their father. “He has been injured, but his family found a way to get him to Turkey and then on a plane across the Atlantic. He is coming to live with us this week.”

  Ahmad took a deep breath. “Okay, Eva. I think we have burdened our guest enough for one night. Here, have some basbousa.” I was full, but I somehow found room for the sweet, sticky cake.

  Eva and Sidra left the room, and Ahmad poured us more tea. “Thank you for coming to dinner. Yes, my mother insisted, but I thought it would be nice for you to meet my family,” he said. “I don’t have many friends. We don’t ever really have guests over. The other people we know who have come from Syria live far from here.” He began to wheel me away from the table and into the living room. There wasn’t much room to maneuver in the small house, and I banged my foot yet again, this time on a bookcase. It was my other foot, and I felt a twinge of pain as I had earlier.

  “Ouch,” I said.

  “You felt that?” asked Ahmad.

  “I felt something. It hurt.”

  “I have not heard you say that before.”

  With Ahmad’s reaction, I suddenly experienced a small bubble of possibility in my brain. “Does this mean something?”

  “I don’t know. It might be important. I think we should do some tests. I’ll call your doctor tomorrow and suggest they get right on it.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Chapter Tenr />
  I felt shooting pains in both legs in bed that night. At first I thought this was a good sign, but, of course, I still couldn’t move them. I just felt the pain. I took a couple pills through the night and that helped, so I took a couple more in the morning. When my mom dropped me off at school, I was in a serious fog. Not good.

  Rowan and Pool were hanging out by the front door, and Rowan moved to help me get through the door. He said something to Pool, and I didn’t hear it. I thought it was a crude remark about me, but I could have been wrong. I thought Pool snickered, but maybe I was just being paranoid. Once inside, my brain carried me over to the dark side. I hit my brake and wheeled around. Rowan and Pool looked startled.

  “What?” Rowan asked.

  “Piss off,” I said. “Just piss off.”

  Rowan looked at Pool and then gave me a look. Pool held out his middle finger and tapped me on the cheek with it. And then they were gone. Man, I was in a rotten mood. If you can, conjure in your head a cocktail of feeling paranoid, anxious, tired, antsy and bored all at the same time. Well, that was me sitting in English class as Mr. Carlton explained how the English poets were obsessed with time and aging and how nothing stayed the same. Everything young gets old. Everything beautiful turns to something ugly. Everything living must die. Just what I needed that morning.

  I wanted to stand up and shout out, Screw you, William Shakespeare! Bugger off, John Milton! Rot in your grave, Christopher Marlowe! But instead I closed my eyes and fell asleep. And dreamed yet again about that damn wave.

  To Mr. Carlton, the dean of human mortality, I give some credit for just letting me be. I guess there was no class in his room after my English period was over, because I awoke to an empty room and more pain in my right foot. But now my chair was over by the windows.

  Mr. C. was at his desk, grading papers and eating a sandwich. When he saw that I was awake, he asked, “You okay, Nick? Need to go to the nurse or something?”

  “No,” I said. “It’s the meds. And I’m having a bad day.”

  “We all have bad days,” he said, trying to be nice.

  “Not like mine,” I said.

  “No,” he admitted. “Not like yours.” And then he changed the subject. “I guess English poetry didn’t cheer you up.”

  “Not today,” I said.

  The classroom door opened right about then.

  “Hi, Keira, how can I help you?” asked Mr. C.

  “Don’t worry—I didn’t come to complain about that lousy grade you gave me last year.”

  Mr. C. looked a little baffled.

  “I came to find Nick.”

  I took another deep breath and tried to clear the fog in my head.

  “Let’s go,” she said, walking toward me and then trying to move my chair. It didn’t move at first, but I flipped off the brake and we lurched forward. Mr. Carlton watched closely, wondering, I’m sure, what was going on.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we moved to the front of the room and past Mr. C., who watched with his sandwich halfway to his mouth.

  “Wherever you want,” she said.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Let’s go to the library,” I said, for no particular reason.

  So we went to the library. Mrs. Jenson heard us as we rolled in and, without looking up, said, “The library’s closed this period.” She too was eating her lunch. But then she stopped and gave us the once-over.

  “We just need a quiet place to hang out,” Keira said.

  “Like I said, the library is closed,” Mrs. Jenson repeated.

  Keira kept looking at her.

  “Okay,” Mrs. Jenson said. “But no video games or internet noise. I need quiet too.”

  So I rolled toward the big wall of windows, and Keira followed. We both sat there looking out at the dead grass, the dark sky and the lifeless windows reflecting back at us from the other side of the courtyard.

  I told her about my recurring dream. She listened to me talk about what I remembered of the day of the wave. It was the first time I’d talked about it in a long while, even though it had played out in my head a million times.

  “Have you been back there since?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe you should. Maybe this is all some kind of PTSD thing like what the news keeps talking about. Seems to me almost everyone on the planet is suffering from some kind of trauma disorder. Most of it sounds like bullshit to me. But maybe you have the real thing.”

  “Maybe. But I’m not sure that going back to the Ledge would help in any way.”

  “Maybe not. It was just an idea.”

  Then something triggered in my head. “But I do know something that would.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve never been able to figure out how I got ashore, how I ended up in the ambulance. I’ve asked, but no one seems to know.”

  “Then let’s figure it out.”

  “I’ve tried. The hospital staff said they didn’t know. The ambulance brought me to the ER. That was it. The paramedics who took me in aren’t there anymore, and the ambulance people wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “Bullshit. You want to know the story, and you deserve to find out. Do you think it will help?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why do you think you want to know so bad?”

  “Because I’m pretty sure I should have died that day. I was out there alone. Not another soul around. I had sealed my own fate, like the idiot that I was.”

  “But you didn’t die. And I don’t think you just washed onto the beach and the paramedics showed up.”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t make sense.”

  “Then let’s track down the paramedics. One of them was a woman, right?”

  Keira moved us to a computer terminal and punched some keys. Mrs. Jenson looked over. I thought she was going to chase us away, but she didn’t. She just held a finger to her lips in the classic shush-says-the-librarian fashion.

  “This isn’t rocket science,” Keira whispered. I watched the screen as she located the website of the hospital and followed some links to the list of private ambulance companies that served it. “Which one?”

  “That one,” I said, pointing to All-County Emergency Service. “But they told me they couldn’t help.”

  “Tell me the date of your accident,” she said.

  “October second,” I said.

  She was already on her cell phone, calling the ambulance dispatch.

  Chapter Twelve

  Let’s just say Keira didn’t exactly have a good phone personality. “Let me speak to someone in charge,” she snapped, clicking to speaker phone and turning the volume way down so I could listen but Jenson wouldn’t kick us out.

  “Is this an emergency?” a man’s voice asked.

  “No. I just want to speak to whoever is in charge.”

  “You need to give me a good reason,” he said, now sounding a bit pissed.

  “Don’t be an asshole,” Keira spit out. “Just let me speak to your boss. Please.” The “please” sounded more like her traditional “screw you.” But after a brief silence it got her through.

  “Anderson here,” said a woman’s voice. “What is this about?”

  “I’m working with a client,” Keira said, winking at me. “His name is Nick Peterson. Your paramedics took him to the hospital back in early October. We’re trying to nail down some important details about what happened that day. Part of his therapy. It’s really quite important.”

  The woman asked for the exact date, and Keira gave it to her.

  “The surfing accident, right. Give me a minute to call up a file.”

  So far, so good, I thought. Keira was now being civil, and the woman on the other end seemed to want to help. She came on the line again. “Landon and Becker were on call. Becker driving, and Landon must have been in the crib with Peterson. Pretty bad situation.”

  “Peterson is still in recovery,” Keira said, sounding even more professional now. “We think that if we can piece toge
ther what happened in the water, it will help him psychologically.”

  “I can tell you what happened in the water. He got slam-dunked by a big wave, and he hit something underwater. Likely a severe spinal injury, it says here, but you probably know a lot more than that.”

  “We’re trying to find out how he ended up on the shore and who called 9-1-1.”

  “It says here that whoever called 9-1-1 didn’t leave a name and didn’t want to be identified. When it turned out to be a real call and not a prank, nobody bothered to track the call.”

  “So there’s nothing in the report about how Peterson got ashore?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Can I talk to this Landon or Becker?”

  Another beat of silence.

  “Well, neither one works here anymore.”

  A dead end. But Keira didn’t want to give up.

  “Any idea where I can find them?”

  “I’m pretty sure Becker took some job with a mining company in South America. Landon, though, she took a dispatcher job over at Coventry.”

  “Coventry?”

  “Another ambulance service north of here.”

  “Thank you. This is very helpful.”

  “Who did you say you were with?” the woman asked.

  But Keira had already hung up.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Having a lead to the mystery and possibly learning the full story suddenly scared the shit out of me. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said.

  Keira gave me a hard look. “Hey, you started this goose chase. Let’s go.”

  “Go? Go where?”

  “I don’t trust another phone call. We should go find this Coventry place and this Landon woman and get the story in person. We’ll go in my mom’s car.”

  She wasn’t thinking straight. Yes, she had access to an old wreck of a car, and it might even get us there. But I couldn’t get in it. I pointed down at my heavy goddamn motorized machine that I was completely dependant on to get from point A to point anywhere.