For some pretense to my jitters, my younger brother drowned 20 years ago. I lost him so young that I have never been able to completely move on. It left me with a guilt that etched itself onto my soul and now I think that something more malicious is haunting my family. It feels evil. Like whatever it is, want's to hurt me.
I'll let you all know what happened that day and whats going on now to see if you all can find any connections or clues to help me, for the sake of my family.
In the early 2000's, our family would take yearly trips to Mexico to visit relatives and keep us in touch with our roots. From sight seeing at national parks to visiting coastal towns, we spent a lot of time on the road. We would get pulled out of school for about two weeks at a time every year around January.
It felt like a blessing to get away from school for those two weeks. I was a chubby quiet kid with a bowl cut, so that pretty much tells you how popular I was. But I wanted this trip to be different for me. My bubble was slowly suffocating me and it felt like it was time for it to burst. This was supposed to be my chance to try and prove to myself that I could be cool if I just tried.
My younger brother, on the other hand, was a ball of energy that never sat still. He loved to ask questions and could entertain himself for hours with just his imagination. I envied how free he was and how he always was the center of attention even at a young age. While my older sister was the more the stoic and calm type. Always around to scold us for misbehaving, but also played the role of a gentle and strong role model. I always wished to be more like both of them. They shone in ways I only wished I could.
This trip was our last vacation together as a family, and I can't seem to recall any of it. All of the fun moments spent together blotched out by the suffocating miasma of the day I lost my brother. My only recollection being that it was our second last day before we would be flying home. Our final destination was to be a famous water park on the coast of Michoacán, the state where my parents were from. This was my last chance on the trip to achieve my goal.
The park was a bustling and buzzing mess of patrons. Lifeguards with summery cocktails in hand, chatting with their coworkers and keeping their eyes everywhere but the pools. With it being seemingly normal for almost no supervision of any kind. Even the most wary of parent still only paying the slightest attention to their children, as they all seemed to frequent the bar.
Lost in the jumble of music and screaming children, my brother David and I lost our parents and sister almost immediately. Yet we didn't mind in the slightest, we were almost happier now that we were alone. The park seemed like a wild west, a no mans land of sorts. Every child for themselves to enjoy their time however they pleased. I could have sworn we even spotted a boy with a margarita in hand while sunbathing.
"Nesty where should we go first!" David squealed with excitement.
He seemed like he was having fun at just the sight of the place. His eyes squinting as the sun beamed directly towards him. I never understood why I found his reaction to be so irksome. It could be because I felt that playing with my younger brother would seem childish and the cool older kids at the park wouldn't want me to hangout with them if I had him following me around.
"Go find mom and dad or something, I don't want to hang out with you."
"Why not? I didn't do anything! Please lets go play!" He grabbed my hand and tried pulling me towards the slides by the kiddy pools.
"David leave me alone! I'm too old to play with you anymore!" I said as I ripped my hand from his.
Thinking back, I wasn't too old to play with him. I loved my brother and his youthful enthusiasm. I just needed to prove to myself that I could be cool too and that I wasn't just some fat awkward kid.
I started heading towards the lazy river where a group of 5 children, all around my age or older, were mindlessly floating. Even from a distance I could tell these guy's were cool. Like, they already had girlfriends and did what they wanted, type of cool. They all shared the same skinny build with their ribs slightly noticeable.
"Hey, can I hangout with you guys?" I asked trying to put on a cool bravado.
They looked at me up and down with judgmental stares, analyzing me head to toe. I sucked my pudgy stomach in reflexively out of embarrassment.
"Why aren't you in the water?" They all asked me confused on why I was still dry and on the side of the river.
"Umm, I don't…"
"You don't what?"
"I don't know how to swim…" I whispered sheepishly as I stared at the ground.
Wailing laughter erupted from the boys as they fought to cling onto the edge of the river. They seemed like a pack of hungry hyenas encircling their prey as they rose from the water to stand in-front of me and David.
"Wait shouldn't you be at the kiddy pool with him?" One said as they pointed at David and laughed.
"I'm not with him!" I yelled back. "David go find mom or Irene!" I whispered to trying to push him away.
Yet he wouldn't budge and simply shook his head and scowled up at me. I got the feeling that this kid was going to stay with me all day, whether I liked it or not.
The oldest of the group, seeming to be about 13 or 14 years old, stopped laughing. His black hair glistening with droplets of water collecting at the tips. He was obviously the leader and they all knew it. Grabbing the other boys by the shoulders, he turned them from my direction. All we heard were whispers and giggling over whatever they were discussing.
"Okay Mowgli," he said as all five boys turned to face us. Some holding back laughter while the others grinned from ear to ear. "We'll let you hang out with us, BUT you have to do something first."
David nervously glanced at me while slightly tugging on my swim shorts, he noticed something that I was too blind see.
It was simple. To hangout with them all I had to do was go through the main pool of the park, from one side to the other. Starting from the shallow end which would be a simple few steps, going all the way to the deep end on the other side. To this day I still barely know how to float let alone swim for a few feet before having to place my feet on the ground. But I thought this would be a good way to lose my brother and have him go find our parents or sister.
I stood before the bustling blue pool, readying myself for the trial before me. Once I made it to the other side I would finally be able to consider myself cool. There was nothing else that mattered in that moment other than me and the gently declining slope of the pool. Remembering back now the pool only reached about 5 feet deep but it seemed on par with marianna's trench.
I started taking my first baby steps into the shallow end, when I felt how cold the water was to the touch. It freaked me out how on such a sunny day the water felt almost arctic. An eerie sign for my perilous journey from one end of the pool to the other. Within a few steps I was already knee deep in the water and I still felt confident. I was going to do this and I was going to prove to everyone that I could be cool too.
Being so hyper focused on the water gradually swallowing my lower body, I tuned out my surroundings completely. All of the talking, screaming, and music turned into a droning murmur of sound that I was trying to ignore. The waves of the water rocking me as everyone in the pool splashed and swam in different directions.
"Look at the little piggy why would he get in the pool if he doesn't even know how to swim?!" Screamed one of the boys as they laughed at me.
I had no clue I was being mocked and made a joke of, all while I was fighting for my life to breathe. My sister, on the other hand who wasn't to far away, was sun bathing and enjoying her peace. Yet she always made sure to keep us somewhere where she could either hear or see us. And she had one ear acutely tuned to what was happening with David and I.
"My big brother isn't a pig." David said taking his eyes off of me and turning to face the bullies.
"Aww is the baby mad cause his big brother is a little porky?" The leader said now pushing his nose up trying to look like a pig.
"You guys are bullies and I'm telling my brother that you guys lied to him!" David turned, making his way into the pool behind me.
My sister decided at that moment to intervene before we got into any harm because of them. She had gotten up and made her way to the lifeguard's chair on the left end of the pool away from David and I.
"Nestor stop they tricked you!" He yelled as he began wading his way through the water quickly.
His quickness brought him to a few feet behind me. And at a few feet behind me, he couldn't walk on the pool floor any longer. He tried swimming with an awkward form between doggy paddling and something else. All of the swimmers and kids jumping into the pool created waves just strong enough to stop David from keeping his head above the water.
The sloshing behind me was pulling and trying to bring my attention towards my brother's desperate fight to grab my attention. He began to silently and slowly sink as the screams of other children and the blaring music drowned him out. Others starting to swim over and around us as my momentum started coming to halt and panic began settling in.
I felt a slight bump on my back. A push so gentle yet with just enough force to propel me forward again. I came up for air and saw the edge just within my reach. If I went under and just tiptoed enough for one last bounce I could make it! I extended my arms out and closed my eyes as my hands pawed for the edge. With my hands touching the cool stone above the edge of the pool, my eyes shot open. I had made it!
Pulling myself with all the force left in my body, I sprang out of the water gasping for air and looking across the other the side for the boys to be cheering me on. But as I looked around, I saw no one not even David. I rubbed my eyes and saw Irene running my way with the lifeguard. Fear covering her face as she screamed and watch as the lifeguard dived in the pool past me. The world was silent for some reason.
I saw the bustling of the other swimmers stop. The music even seemed to pause as everyone turned to face the pool I had just managed to escape from. In the water, was David's body face down and floating up with his small back facing the sky. A high pitched ringing was all that I could hear as I stood motionless staring at my brother.
Irene began telling me everything as we sat outside of my brother's hospital room. The mocking and David trying to stop me from going deeper. My mother, screaming as if she was being murdered, hid her face in my father's chest as the color drained from his face. This scene would play on repeat for the next 15 years of my life. While David's death devastated all of us, I took it the worst. I knew this all had happened because of me. Because of a stupid childish wish to be cool. And it cost me my brothers life.
My parents swore to never let my sister and I out of their sight ever again. Irene hated it but I had no objections. I gave up on my personal journey and fell deeper into my hole of self loathing. Where I used to feel the need to be recognized by my school mates as 'cool', was now replaced with a shame and guilt that the trade between my brothers life and mine was fueling.
The years following, I had no real motivations or goals so I followed the path my father set for me. Become an architect as he was and work for his firm that maintained steady work. And I did. I went to college with nothing on my mind rather than to just be in and out. But I found love and comfort while there.
My wife was a psych major and normally our paths wouldn't have crossed but she says her accidentally ramming her bike into me as I walked to class, was destiny. She wouldn't let me just walk away without her properly apologizing to me, so I let her buy me a coffee. After that, what was supposed to be a simple apology turned into us meeting coincidentally at the same café every Friday morning. We would talk about our week, classes, and life in general. She offered me such a sincere and genuine connection that brought a glimmer back to my eyes.
We married after college and had two beautiful boys. Ironically enough their age gap was the same as David and I. My oldest son, Daniel, was the exact same as his late uncle. A ball of energy who could keep himself occupied for hours. It'd bring me tears of mixed emotions whenever I would get to watch him for awhile. Rami was like his mother in the fact that he was gentle and kind even at a young age. Going as far as bringing a small injured bird into our apartment to nurse him back to health.
The boys loved to ask about my childhood since I was always so reserved about it. They argued whether I was apart of a secret spy family or hitmen, but I would laugh and reassure them that it was nothing out of the ordinary. I told them that I had a normal childhood and I even had a brother. But he went to heaven early to make sure we would all know the way there. That answer was good enough for them so they never asked more and it was good enough for me to not wallow on the past.
When Amanda and I finally had enough money saved, we bought our first home. She wanted a nice house in the suburbs with a pool for the boys to swim in, since she always dreamed of having a pool as a little girl. And having designed a house recently in the city of Agoura Hills in SoCal, I felt that the quiet nature there would suit us perfectly. With her job as a well established marriage counselor and my job as an architect, we could afford it. As soon as we moved in Daniel and Rami hounded me to have the pool cleaned so they could swim. And when I did, I was left on lifeguard duty.
The boys splashed water at each other, swung pool noodles and screamed with joy. I cherished the simple blessings like this, it offered me the chance lick my wounds in a way therapy couldn't. Amanda was at a last minute emergency appointment with a client of her's that swore she was finally going to divorce her dead beat husband. Distraught that she wouldn't able to join the boys for the first swim in our new pool, she asked me to take and send as many pictures as I could.
"Okay boys I'm going to get your towels, I'll be right back." I said to them as I slid open the pocket door for the backyard and made my way to their room.
I would always forget which drawer had their towels so I opened and closed them in order until I reached the last one.
"I have to remember that it's the last one." I murmured as I grabbed two blue towels and threw them over my shoulder.
The layout of the house had the boys room right next to the backyard, with the window giving a view of everything going on in the pool. Listening to the boys still splashing and giggling, I heard my phone chime. Pausing and reaching into my pocket with my back to the window, I saw a message from Amanda.
"Oh did one of the neighbor's kids come to play with them!"
Rereading the text, I thought my wife was seeing maybe a smudge on my camera that could have looked like a third kid? I pressed the photo and zoomed in. In the corner of the picture was a figure of a boy in the pool. Not Daniel or Rami, but another child facing their direction with them oblivious to his presence. I glanced towards the pool before I left the room. What I saw sent a numbing shock through my body. A tingling sensation of dread and danger that caught me so off guard I couldn't find the strength to even breathe.
There, on the deep end side of the pool, was a boy with pale blue deeply cracked skin like old leather. His hair buzzed and his eyes squinting daggers at Daniel and Rami, who didn't notice the boy floating in the pool with them. The next moment his head swiveled towards my direction and white bubbling foam began oozing out of his mouth and down into the pool. I dropped the towels and ran out of the room in an instant. My heart thudded against my chest, my eyes began to burn, and my mind worked it's hardest to tell myself I made that whole scene up.
"DANIEL, RAMI GET OUT OF THE POOL NOW!" I yelled as I dashed outside.
"What's wrong dad?" Daniel asked as they both dropped their pool noodles and looked at me nervously.
"I SAID GET OUT!"
The two of them stiffened up and got out quickly as I paced around the edge of the pool.
There was nobody there but I couldn't have made that up! I haven't been on medications for years and I stopped seeing things along with them. I saw David, there's no fucking way I was hallucinating. Sure it was a nightmare version of him but I know it was my brother. I searched every corner of the pool and found no signs that anyone else got in our out of there in the few second's it took me to run outside. All that was left where the boy vanished was a small white foam cluster in the center of the pool.
I pulled the boys quickly to the bathroom and began drying them off before they noticed anything.
"Boy's… did you guy's see um… anyone else in the pool?" I asked as I continued patting them down.
"No dad," Rami said innocently, "me and Daniel we're just play samurais!"
Daniel shook his head in agreement underneath the towel as I dried his hair. Daniel was still tense from me yelling at them, but Rami was already over it and ready to start playing inside now. I sighed and took both towels in my hands.
"Okay… sorry for scaring you guys. Dad's just been a little on edge because of all the moving stress." I said softly as I got down to eye level with them.
They both looked ready to bolt to their room and continue playing as they stepped from side to side. I smiled a bit knowing that I didn't scare them too much. Everything was fine.
"Go on boys, go play."
They darted out towards their room as I stood at the door. I still felt a twinge of shock throughout my body. Sighing I walked towards the broom closet and took out the mop. Amanda hated any stains on the ground, so I had to clean up the wet footprints the boys left as we walked inside. Starting at the sliding door, I followed the footsteps with the mop and stopped at the hallway splitting between the guest bathroom and my office.
Where the trail of two child size and one adult pair of foot steps curved towards the direction of the bathroom, another set strayed from the path. Small wet foot prints led to my office, where the door stood slightly ajar. I gulped and felt the air around me thicken to an almost sludge like sensation. Inhaling the thickened air, I snailed my way through the suffocating humidity enveloping the hallway.
The door hung tauntingly as it creaked a tease for me to open it. My mind raced, heart tightened and body trembled as I moved as an embodiment of fear. When my hand grasped the warm edge of the door, I swung it open and found the steps almost skipping forward. They ended at the foot of my grand bookshelf where I stored house plans and books of construction codes that I collected over the years. But with all of my work related things, sat a picture book from my childhood that I would look at whenever I was feeling nostalgic. That same book laid perfectly open on the ground. Open to last picture of David and I, from our trip to Mexico.
I'm still staring at the book, I can't even bring myself to put it back on the shelf. I had to wipe my sweaty hands down before I began typing all this out. Can someone tell me I'm just over-reacting. I'm going to keep this away from wife cause I don't want her to worry about my mental health when she has so much going on. In the meantime I'm going to get a drink and clean this up. God knows I need it.