My Neighbor Thought I Was Away and Dumped Broken Glass Into My Pool

Chapter 26

The water went in on a Friday. The first test came back on Monday. Clean.

The second test came back on Thursday. Clean.

Dr. Chen signed the inspection sheet herself. "You can swim in it," she said. "Officially. On paper. With my name under it."

"And unofficially?" I asked.

"Unofficially, I'd let my own kids in."

That was enough.

Ava had been counting down on the kitchen calendar. Not to the party. To the day she could touch the star with her toes. She'd drawn a small blue circle around the date.

The delayed party was scheduled for a Saturday — a full year and one week after the one that never happened. Eleven years old now instead of ten. I asked her if she wanted a theme.

"No theme," she said. "Just the pool."

I invited the same nine children. Same names, same addresses. I wrote the invitations myself, by hand, because it felt like it should be done by hand.

"You're invited," I told Mrs. Alvarez at the door. "Same as last year."

She looked at me for a long moment. "We didn't think — after everything —"

"I know," I said. "It's okay if he can't come."

"He wants to come," she said quickly. "He's been asking about Ava."

All nine said yes.

The morning of the party, I was up at six. I skimmed the pool even though there was nothing to skim. I checked the test strip. I checked the binder. I checked the test strip again.

Ava came downstairs in her swimsuit at seven. "Dad. Stop."

"I'll stop."

"You won't."

"I'll try."

At ten o'clock, the doorbell rang. Kids. Gifts. Noise. The backyard filled the way it was supposed to fill a year ago — like water finding its level.

Ava stood at the edge of the pool with her toes on the coping. She looked down at the star, shimmering under four feet of water. Exactly the way Roy said it would.

"Go," someone shouted.

She jumped.

The splash went everywhere. She came up laughing, water in her eyes, and dove straight down. I watched her go — down, down, until her hand reached out and her fingers brushed the center of the star.

She pushed off the bottom and surfaced. "I touched it!"

Everyone cheered. Two of the kids jumped in after her. Then all of them. The pool became what a pool is supposed to be: chaos and noise and water everywhere.

I stood by the equipment with a towel over my shoulder and just watched. An hour passed. Then two.

Mrs. Alvarez came over. "She looks good," she said. "Ava. She looks really good."

"She is good."

"Last year — we were all so scared. My son asked if the water could hurt him."

"What did you tell him?"

"The truth. That your pool was the one they were watching closest in the whole county." She smiled. "It helped."

At noon we did cake. Eleven candles. Ava blew them out in one breath, and somebody's little brother tried to eat the wax.

"Make a wish," I said.

"I already did," she said. "It came true last year when I got better."

I had to turn away for a second.

One of the dads — Tom Beck, whose daughter Mia was in Ava's class — came over while the kids were eating. He pointed at the binder on the patio table.

"What's that?"

"Every permit, every test, every inspection," I said. "Open it if you want."

He flipped through a few pages. "You kept all of it."

"All of it."

"Last year my wife didn't sleep for a month," he said quietly. "After the news. She kept asking if Mia had been in your pool enough to — you know."

"Has Mia been tested?"

"Twice. Clean. But she still asks." He closed the binder. "This helps, though. Seeing it written down. Knowing someone's actually looking."

"That's the whole idea," I said.

He nodded and went back to the kids. I left the binder open on the table for the rest of the afternoon. Nobody else looked at it. But it was there, and everyone knew it was there, and that turned out to be the point.

In the afternoon, the kids played a game where they took turns diving to the star and calling out what they saw. "Blue!" "More blue!" "The brightest blue!"

Roy's tiles held. Roy's prediction held. The star shimmered.

When the last family left, around five, Ava and I sat on the edge with our feet in the water. The pool was still. The star sat below us, quiet now.

"Was it worth waiting a year?" I asked.

She kicked the water. "I don't think about it as waiting. I think about it as the party moved."

"Moved?"

"To when the pool was ready to be honest." She leaned against my shoulder. "That's what you said, right? No secrets."

"That's what I said."

"Best birthday ever," she said. "Both of them. The one that didn't happen and this one."

I put my arm around her. The water moved against our feet. The star didn't move at all.