Drowning in Shallow Water

The pool hadn't been cleaned in weeks. Green algae scum coated the surface like a bruise, and somewhere beneath it, I knew, lay my father's prized padel trophy—that cheap gold-plated thing he'd won back in '98, the year before Mom left.

"Uncle David?"

I jumped. Charlie stood behind me, twelve years old and clutching a waterlogged tennis ball. His younger brother Sam peered from the sliding glass door, the old family dog—Buster, a golden retriever who'd outlived his master by three years—pressed against his legs.

"We found it," Charlie said. "In the bushes."

The tennis ball. The one I'd hit over the fence during our last game, the afternoon of Dad's funeral. Padel had been his attempt at bonding in his fifties, something sporty and modern. I'd indulged him, humored his weak backhand, ignored his uncomfortable pauses between points where he'd stare at the court surface like it might offer wisdom about his failed marriages.

"Thanks." I took it. The fuzz was slimy with decay.

"Are you gonna clean the pool?" Sam asked, stepping onto the concrete. Buster followed, his nails clicking, his muzzle gray now. "It smells."

"Your father should handle it." I was flying out tomorrow. The house sale would fund the boys' college, if there was anything left after the lawyers finished picking the carcass clean.

"He's at baseball camp," Charlie said. "All summer."

Baseball. Dad's first love, the one he'd tried to force on me and my brother until we both quit at fifteen. I'd forgotten he'd signed the boys up for summer league. Some _ll things echoed.

I looked at the pool again. The water stared back, stagnant and opaque, holding all the things nobody wanted to talk about. Dad's padel trophy. His second wife's earrings, probably. The empty bottles from his final months.

"Uncle David?" Charlie's voice cracked. "Are you crying?"

I was. I hadn't cried at the funeral, hadn't cried when the hospice nurse called, hadn't cried when Buster licked Dad's hand for the last time. But here, standing by this filthy pool with a rotting tennis ball in my palm, something broke open.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I am."

They didn't mock me. They didn't look away. Charlie stepped closer, tentative, and placed his hand on my shoulder. Sam joined him, and Buster nosed my palm, demanding the attention he'd earned through years of steadfast, ridiculous loyalty.

"We can help you clean it," Charlie offered. "Before you go."

So we spent the afternoon skimming the green scum, fishing out leaves and forgotten toys, retrieving that trophy like divers seeking treasure. The water cleared slowly, revealing the blue bottom I hadn't seen in years. By sunset, the pool was almost clean, and the padel trophy sat on the patio table beside Buster's water bowl, worthless and precious all at once.

I taught the boys to serve that evening on the cracked padel court. Their form was terrible. Their father would have corrected everything.

I let them play wrong.