We Never Hear the Drowning because It’s Silent

My fearless, four-year-old daughter was overtired. We were on round two of pool play for the day at my dad and stepmom’s new house, and she was happily jumping from a smaller elevated pool area down into their larger pool over and over again. This time, however, she forgot that she wasn’t wearing her float and leaped into the deep end without an adult in the pool to catch her.

We never hear the drowning because it’s silent.

My stepmom was in the house fixing chicken noodle soup for dinner, and my dad had just returned home from work and changed into his swim trunks to join the girls for a few laps.

I caught my youngest’s wild, impulsive jump out of the corner of my eye and yelled out her name, prepared to reprimand her for running to the edge instead of carefully jumping this round. I panicked when I realized that she wasn’t going to pop back up to the surface because she didn’t have a float around her.

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