It’s quiet now. Too quiet. I’m sitting by the window, staring out at the backyard. The pool cover is on, stretched tight and dark, a blanket over a secret. It’s been weeks since anyone touched it. Weeks since I touched it.
Our house was our sanctuary. Our backyard, our private paradise. And the pool… oh, the pool was everything. We saved for years. Every summer weekend was spent floating, laughing, soaking up the sun. It was the backdrop to so many happy memories, so many dreams we built together. Or so I thought.
Then she moved in next door. A quiet woman, maybe a little older than us, always dressed in simple, practical clothes. She’d give a polite nod if we saw her over the fence, but nothing more. We figured she was just private. We respected that.
A partial view of a sad girl | Source: Freepik
One Tuesday afternoon, I was out by the pool, reading. He was at work. The summer heat was oppressive, but the water was cool and inviting. I saw her at the fence. She looked hesitant, then took a deep breath.
“Excuse me,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady, considering how pale she was. “Could I speak to you for a moment?”
I smiled, expecting some mundane neighborly chat. Maybe she needed to borrow a cup of sugar, or complain about a branch overhanging.
“Of course,” I replied, pulling off my sunglasses.
Her eyes, usually so calm, were fixed on me, wide and earnest. She leaned closer to the fence. “I need you to stop using your pool.”
My smile faltered. Did I hear that right? “I’m sorry?”
“The pool,” she repeated, gesturing vaguely. “I need you to stop using it. Permanently.”
I blinked. “But… it’s our pool. We own it.” I felt a flicker of annoyance, quickly turning to outright disbelief. Who does she think she is?
“I understand that,” she said, her voice dropping, almost a whisper. “But you can’t use it anymore.” Her gaze was intense, not angry, but desperate. Like she was pleading for her life.
A father and daughter hugging | Source: Midjourney
I told him that night. He erupted. I’d never seen him so furious, so instantly dismissive. “She’s insane! That’s our property! We’ll do whatever we want!” He stormed off, slamming doors, raging about boundaries and crazy neighbors. I tried to calm him, but he was beyond reason. His reaction was so disproportionate, so… fierce. Even for him. It bugged me.
Days turned into a week. She didn’t approach us again, but I felt her eyes on us. Every time we went near the pool, I swore I could feel her watching from her kitchen window. A chill ran down my spine, even in the relentless heat. He, meanwhile, started pulling away. Long hours at work turned into even longer ones. He was quiet, distracted. Every mention of the neighbor or the pool sent him into a defensive rage. He’d snap at me over trivial things. Something was off. Deeply, unsettlingly off.
I couldn’t shake it. Her face. The look in her eyes. It wasn’t malice. It was pain. And something else… a knowing. She knew something. And it was tied to our pool. To us.
One afternoon, when he was at “work,” I screwed up my courage. I baked a small cake, poured a thermos of coffee, and walked next door. She answered, her face etched with surprise.
“I just… I wanted to talk,” I said, holding up the cake. “About the pool. I don’t understand.”
A serious man outside at night | Source: Unsplash
She hesitated, then slowly opened the door wider. Her house was sparse, meticulously clean. We sat at her kitchen table. She poured us coffee, her hands trembling slightly.
“You don’t understand,” she began, her voice barely audible. “And you wouldn’t, because he never told you.” She looked directly at me, and I braced myself for… I don’t know what. A zoning dispute? A bizarre phobia?
“My sister lived in your house before you did.”
The air left my lungs. What? We’d bought the house from a couple who were downsizing. They’d lived here for decades.
“No,” I managed, my voice strained. “That’s not right. We bought it from…”
“They sold it on behalf of my sister’s estate,” she interrupted softly. “After she… passed.” She gestured to a small, framed photo on her fridge. A smiling young woman, vibrant, beautiful. Then, another photo, tucked behind it – the same woman, visibly pregnant, a soft glow around her.
My heart started to pound. A cold dread seeped into my bones. Why are you telling me this?
She pushed a small, worn photo album across the table. Inside, snapshots of the young woman. And then, photos of her with a man. Laughing. Holding hands. By a pool. OUR pool.
My breath hitched. My eyes darted to the man’s face in the photos. It was him.
NO. IT CAN’T BE.
A happy father and daughter | Source: Midjourney
Tears streamed down her face. “My sister was in love with him. She thought he was going to leave you. He promised her he would. He told her she was his true love. He told her this house, this pool, was going to be theirs. Their family home.”
The photos blurred. My vision swam. “No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “He… he wouldn’t.”
“He did,” she said, her voice laced with an old, deep pain. “They had a child. A boy.” She turned a page. A photo of my husband, holding a tiny newborn. HIS SON. My head spun.
“My sister… she never recovered from the birth. Complications. She died two weeks later.” Her voice broke. “He disappeared. Called once. Then nothing. So I took her son. My nephew. My sister’s son.”
I was hyperventilating. This couldn’t be real. This was a nightmare. My perfect life. My perfect husband. A SECRET FAMILY. A SECRET CHILD.
“He reached out a few years ago,” she continued, her voice gaining strength now, raw with emotion. “Said he missed his son. He started coming here, secretly. Visiting him.”
This explains the late nights. The distant behavior. The rages. My God, he was maintaining two lives.
A cot | Source: Pexels
“The boy,” she said, her voice cracking, “he’s bright. And he has a good memory. Every time he comes over to my house, he looks out at your pool. He saw you both in it. He recognized his father. And he started asking about the pool. Asking if that’s where his mommy used to be with his daddy. Asking why Daddy doesn’t take him there. Asking why Daddy lives in that house and not with us.” She picked up a crayon drawing from the table. A stick figure man with dark hair, a smaller stick figure holding his hand. And next to them, a house with a clear blue rectangle. A pool.
“I just can’t bear to see you in that pool anymore,” she finally confessed, her eyes pleading. “It’s all he has left of his mother and the broken promises his father made. It’s too much. For him. For me. And for his father, who wants to forget everything that happened in that water.”
I looked down at the drawing. My husband’s name, scrawled in a child’s unsteady hand, next to the stick figure man. My house. My pool. His son.
HE HAS A CHILD. MY HUSBAND HAS A CHILD WITH ANOTHER WOMAN. A CHILD HE HID FROM ME FOR YEARS. A CHILD WHO LIVES NEXT DOOR.
The quiet now is deafening. The pool cover, a dark, shimmering expanse, reflects only a distorted sky. It’s not a sanctuary anymore. It’s a tomb. A monument to a lie. And I’m drowning in it.
