Friday, July 22, 2016

Against the Odds

"Oh no! I lost my earring!" Annabelle cried at the pool this afternoon. The other three of us frowned. We knew that she treasured those earrings because Aunt Emily had just given them to her the other night, but we also knew that she had been all over that pool in the last hour and a half.

"I'll get my goggles," I told her, "but I'm not hopeful."

Annabelle's face fell.

"I can hold my breath a looooong time!" her brother Richard proclaimed. "I'm sure I can find it!" he assured her as he swam to get his face mask.

Heidi, already in goggles, began to search without a word.

The water was warm and blue in the shade as I made my first pass, and filtered light dappled the pool in fishnet patterns as I scanned for a tiny blue glass flower. It had been a long time since I had swum purposefully under water, but regulating my breath and flotation came back to me as I kicked along in the shallows. I had not noticed how many little bits of leaves and bugs littered the bottom, but knowing the odds were against us did not make a difference. In the emotional waves of the last few days, the clarity of searching the aquamarine silence for a single, concrete thing, no matter how small, was comforting, and I wasn't surprised at all when I found it.

No comments:

Post a Comment