The Papaya Summer

Eleanor sat on her back porch, watching her granddaughter Maya splash in the pool below. The morning sun caught the water's surface, creating dancing diamonds of light that transported Eleanor back sixty years to another summer, another pool, and her dearest friend Ruth.

They were sixteen that summer, running wild through the subtropical neighborhood where everything grew lush and impossible. Ruth's father had returned from the war with papaya seeds, planting them along their fence line. By July, the heavy fruits hung like green moons, and Ruth became obsessed with getting them perfect.

"They need more vitamin C than oranges," Ruth insisted, reading from her mother's encyclopedia. "We'll be the healthiest girls in Florida."

Every afternoon they'd run to the community pool, practicing their dives until the lifeguard blew his whistle. Ruth was bold—Eleanor cautious—but they balanced each other perfectly. When boys from the north side came by, Ruth would run toward them with her confident stride while Eleanor hovered behind, until Ruth would reach back, grab her hand, and pull her forward.

The papayas ripened in August, and Ruth climbed the fence in the moonlight to harvest the first one. They ate it on the pool deck with spoons stolen from Eleanor's kitchen, the sweet orange flesh dripping down their chins as they talked about everything and nothing—boys they'd marry, places they'd go, the women they'd become.

Ruth became a nurse, discovering her calling in that summer of research about vitamins. She married a doctor and moved to California. Eleanor stayed, married the boy who'd whistled from the north side, raised four children in this very house. But through letters, then phone calls, then emails, they remained each other's anchor.

Now Ruth was gone, pancreatic cancer taking her three years ago. But here was Maya, Ruth's granddaughter, visiting for the summer, running around the pool with the same confident stride Eleanor remembered so well.

"Grandma!" Maya called, waving from the water. "Try coming in! The water's perfect!"

Eleanor smiled, thinking of papaya summers and brave friends and how running toward life instead of away from it had been Ruth's greatest lesson. She stood up slowly, her joints stiff but willing, and headed for the pool. Some circles were worth completing again.