It was the summertime of my tenth year. I had long tangled blonde hair, bleached to a
slimy green hue from the excessive exposure to pool chlorine. I had always loved swimming, but never quite
as much as I did that summer. It was hot
and dry in the valley, with average temperatures hovering around 105 degrees,
so naturally I spent my days in any swimming pool I could find. Occasionally my brother and I would swim in
the filthy canals that surrounded the fields on our farm. We were warned about rats, but we never did
see any. My skin was almost as dark as my chocolate
brown eyes, so much so that I could have passed for a Mexican. Moms didn’t fuss with sunscreen back then the
way they do now, or at least mine didn’t.
I was a strong swimmer, and the water offered me a different
kind of safe haven that year, more than it had ever done before. I can still hear the utter silence as I
jumped off the diving board, head first into my grandfather’s pool. We were hosting a wake that day, for my
twenty-one year old aunt who had committed suicide. There were over a hundred people there, and
the low buzzing of quiet chatter seemed deafeningly loud. I felt guilty, walking through the house in
my swimsuit, while others were dressed in black suits and stiff dresses,
clutching snotty, wet handkerchiefs in their tense hands; but I was ten and it
was hot, and the pool was quiet.
Dozens of people stood around the pool, forcing false grins which
stretched across their skin as I mounted the diving board and curled my toes
over the edge. Within a moment I was
fully submerged in the safety of the pool, and all of the noise
disappeared. I was encompassed by the
kind of silence that can only be found inside of a child’s innocent mind. Surprisingly, for the first time I found
myself scared in the water. I could feel
my favorite, dead aunt’s presence, as though she were swimming after me, and so
I made my way to the surface as quickly as possible, and the noise returned. I found myself in a quandary. Should I get out and surround myself with
grief, or should I stay in the water and listen to the deafening silence? I stayed in the pool, swimming just below the
surface from one end to the other for an hour, holding my breath as long as I
could. I could still feel her following
me, just about to grasp the ends of my toes, and so I swam harder to remain out
of her reach. I could feel it all summer
long, every single time I got into a pool.
I craved the silence that could only be found beneath the surface, yet I
feared that I was being chased by a dead woman.
I would learn to live with it.
My kelly green swimsuit was my second skin that summer. I took it off only occasionally to take a
shower, and who needed a shower when they were in a pool all day? Even when my mom forced me to take a shower
and to use the soap, I rarely took the suit off. One afternoon, after she insisted that I
bathe, I walked down the hallway and noticed a cabinet, half open, which stored
the Band-Aids. Old enough to feel the
pain of losing a beloved family member in such a tragic way, and young enough
to still believe that Band-Aids still had the capacity to heal wounds, I
grabbed three beige bandages and took them into the bathroom. Without being asked, I peeled off my
swimsuit, and carefully placed the bandages over my left breast in a pathetic
attempt to heal my pain. Realizing that
it didn’t work, I sobbed in acknowledgment of my broken, ten-year-old
heart. I pulled my swimsuit back over my
tiny, hairless body and pedaled my bike to the city pool rather than taking a
shower.
