By Hannah Gamble
PROMPT — If only ...
The deep end of my grandparents’ pool holds a portal to another world. Its round glassy lens is as big as my face, colorless and unremarkable in the daylight. But at night, when I was young, it glowed an ethereal aquamarine, illuminating our splashes with slivers of light as elusive as eels darting through the water. The three of us cousins were convinced it was magical; its otherworldly halo was more mysterious than anything we’d ever seen, and we filled it with all the marvels our imaginations could muster. On those warm summer evenings, long after the last of the sunscreen had melted off our skin, we’d dream about the worlds beyond that portal.
At that age, we knew some things for certain. We knew we weren’t allowed to enter the pool without adult supervision, that running on the pockmarked cement between its red brick border and the green prickly grass would earn us a reprimand (and sometimes a skinned knee), and that no matter how long we practiced holding our breath, that we’d eventually have to come up for air. We also knew that the portal was really just a big glass pool light with nothing behind it but cement and dirt, but for the sake of our game we wordlessly agreed to disregard that reality. We convinced ourselves that if we managed to hold our breaths and swim the entire length of the pool underwater, that the portal would expand and suck us through to the other side, where adventure surely awaited us. Of course, our young lungs couldn’t hold enough air to get past the mid-line of the pool, and thus it was a hopeless endeavor. By the time we were old enough to have managed it, we’d outgrown imaginary games.
It’s what the three of us didn’t know then that makes me catch my breath now as I return to my grandparents’ pool with my husband and children in tow. Grandma’s rusted string of bells by the wooden door still clatters as we pass through, but not the way it used to when my cousin would tug on it impishly until the nearest adult’s ears reached the point of intolerance. We didn’t know that only two of us would reach adulthood. We didn’t know that even then, as chlorine stung our eyes and the squeaky pool noodles kept us afloat, that the cells were already there, deep in his brain, multiplying slowly. We didn’t know that life would feel a lot like the growth of that tumor—slow for a while, and then fast, fast, fast. After the tumor finally revealed itself, he lived only five more months. Losing our ringleader left a rift in our bond that the two of us who remained didn’t know how to heal. When we cross paths now, we don’t talk about him, although his memory floats between us like Star Pine tendrils on the surface of the water.
We did find worlds beyond that portal, but not the ones we imagined. In many ways, the life I live in now is more magical than anything I could have dreamed up at that young age. And yet, I come here, to the scene of my childhood, not without a sense of loss. I pictured the three of us circled here beside the pool someday, watching our children replay our childhood memories. But the only children here are mine, and the sky aches with the weight of what could have been. I find myself staring at that shifting green light as my children splash in the shallows, wondering if I could dive into the shadowy depths of the deep end and hold my breath long enough, pressing my forehead to its luminescent face, if I might slip back for just a few minutes into the world where the three of us still shout out “Marco!” “Polo!” in the fading evening light, diving after each other until our echoes dissolve in splashes and laughter.
Hannah Gamble is an emerging writer in San Diego, CA. She holds a BA in Psychology from San Diego State University, and her work is forthcoming in 3 Elements Literary Review. She enjoys spending quality time with her family, exploring outside, and dabbling in various creative disciplines. In this season of life, she is homeschooling her four children, tutoring, and pursuing writing whenever she finds the time.
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