No one said anything for quite some time. “Thank you,” I finally managed to squeak out. “Thank you for saving my life.”
Arnie, the Wreck, looked at me, his eyes shiny with tears. The fear was gone from him now. The paranoid stare had disappeared. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Just don’t do anything stupid like that again.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Those tests Ahmad told me to have done didn’t really show anything new. The doctor said the pain I was feeling was a good sign. Maybe. Or it could just be the phantom pain that amputees sometimes feel in limbs that are long gone. O.C. told me he often feels a sharp pain in his right foot at night when he’s lying in bed. He throws back the covers, half expecting to see that his lower leg and foot have returned. But of course they haven’t.
So I stick with the therapy. My arms keep getting stronger and stronger. Pretty soon I’ll be able to lift an elephant or bend steel bars like Superman. Ha! The ironic thing is that these muscles are my paddling muscles. I was one hell of a paddler as a surfer. If I hadn’t been so strong, I wouldn’t have been able to catch that killer wave. I might have just given up after trying a couple of times and paddled to shore. Instead I went for it.
I mentioned this to Ahmad one day, and he sat me down at his computer and showed me a video from an organization called Life Rolls On. Paraplegics like me learning to surf. How crazy is that? Maybe, just maybe. I don’t know.
Ahmad has not heard from his father in a long while now. But he hasn’t given up hope. He’s talking about going back to Syria to look for him, but his mother and sister think this is a bad idea. Too dangerous. They don’t want to lose him as well.
Arnie got his window and windshield fixed for free, and the police stop by and check on him now and again. He’s no longer afraid of cops. And O.C. has taken to hanging out with the old guy on a regular basis. “He reminds me of my grandfather,” he has said more than once. “We all need family, and I don’t have much left.” I think Arnie has told him one too many surf stories, because O.C. has gotten it in his head that he wants to learn to surf when summer rolls around again. “Look,” he says the people will say, “there’s Ocean in the ocean.” Groan.
The school year is winding down, and soon summer will be here. No one is telling me I will return to normal. The doctors say I may have already “peaked” in my recovery. I hate that word, but it keeps coming back to haunt me. “You may see some improvement,” is the phrase my doctor likes to use. The truth is, no one knows what my future will be like.
I can hope for more recovery, hope that I might walk someday, but I have to accept that it may not happen. And if that’s the case, I have to live with that. I’m not the “ancient mariner.” I don’t have to tell my tragic story over and over. Now that I’ve heard Arnie’s version of what happened that day, I’ve been able to move on. Somewhat. I don’t exactly know why.
Maybe it’s just the thought of good people doing good things, heroic things even, despite the odds. Maybe that’s it. Hearing Arnie’s story released me from my anger. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose, and he still dove into that crazy sea and pulled me ashore.
Keira has been a bit distant lately. Problems at home. Her father moved back in, and he’s dragging them down. She’s asked to stay over at my house at least a dozen times to get away from all the fighting. I always say yes, and my mom has even fixed up a room in the basement where she can stay whenever she wants.
Keira’s pushed me away, though, more than a few times, and said some pretty nasty things. I know it’s coming from a dark place in her world. I can take it. I really can.
“It may not be all that you hope for,” I tell her. “But things can change.”
Things can get better. One day you’re this. The next day you’re that. Everything can change so quickly. Not even in just one day, but in one hour or just one minute.
Lesley Choyce is the author of dozens of books, including The Thing You’re Good At and Identify from Orca Soundings. He has won the Dartmouth Book Award, the Atlantic Poetry Prize and the Ann Connor Brimer Award. He has also been short-listed for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, the White Pine Award, the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award, the Aurora Award from the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association and, most recently, the Governor General’s Literary Award. He lives at Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia.
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