Washing Away the Grit

The iron gate clicked shut, its latch dropping into the strike plate with a solid thud. Beyond the cedar fence, car doors slammed, followed by the low rumble of the patrol cruiser pulling away toward the main guardhouse.

Alicia stood alone on the flagstones.

A smear of gray dirt and chlorinated water marked the edge where Karen had dragged herself onto the coping. Two soaked sheets of paper lay pasted against the stone near the lounger, the red violation stamps running in dark veins toward the skimmer lid. Alicia peeled the wet pages off the rock, walked to the outdoor recycling bin, and let the lid fall shut over them.

She crossed to the garden spigot beneath the kitchen window. The brass valve turned under her palm with a dull creak. She uncoiled thirty feet of rubber hose, clamped her thumb over the nozzle, and drove a hard stream of well water across the pale stone.

The spray pushed the pool water, the crushed cedar needles, and the muddy footprints into the pea gravel along the fence line. Midday heat rose from the wet patio in a faint plume of mineral steam. The sun caught the washed stone, bleaching the gray slabs back to bone-white as the runoff vanished into the lawn.

She wound the hose back onto the reel, loop by loop, until the brass fitting clicked against the bracket.

Her sunglasses rested on the low wicker table where she had placed them before the latch was breached. Alicia picked them up, wiped a stray drop of water from the lens with the dry corner of her towel, and slipped them onto her face. She smoothed the turquoise towel flat across the cushions of the lounger, aligning its hem with the edge of the frame.

The pool water cleared. The small ripples subsided until the white fence and the open summer sky reflected without distortion.

Alicia leaned back into the chair, stretched her legs out toward the heat, and let her shoulders drop.

The silence closed over the yard, clean and unbroken.