Isabel L. Memoir

 

 

Deep Waters

 

It was silent in my Grandparent’s house.  But this peaceful silence was disrupted, as soon as I heard screams.  I looked outside and saw Anna and Sophia submerged underwater, screaming, and gasping for air.  I did not know what to do.  I froze.

Earlier that day, I woke up, walked downstairs, and thought it was going to be a normal summer day, on Lake Waukewan. I was with my family, staying at my Grandparent’s lake house.  Situated on Lake Waukewan, in Meredith, New Hampshire, the large, wooden, lake house, has a small, private beach, and a stunning view of the lake.  It was afternoon when my family announced that they were going to eat lunch at Gisseppi’s in downtown Meredith. I loved Gisseppi’s, I was happy to go eat there.  I found out that instead of accompanying them, I was put in charge of my three cousins.  My three cousins were Sophia (age 3,) Anna (age 3,) and Grace (age 5.)  Of course I love my cousins, but I knew that it was going to be hard to watch all three of them by myself.

My family left, so Grace, Anna, and Sophia decided that they wanted to go down to the beach.  We walked down to the small  beach, and the second we got there Grace decided that she was bored.

“This is really boring! I want to do something fun” says Grace, as she slowly makes sandcastles with a blank look on her face.

“Okay, what do you want-”

“We should go swimming!” Grace yells, cutting me off.  I really don’t want to be in charge of three girls, who barely know how to swim, I think to myself.

“Well…Grace, I think we should wait until your dad gets home”  Grace hears what I said and is clearly angry.

“But I WANT to swim NOW!” Grace yells at the top of her lungs.  Again I say that this is a bad idea, and that we should wait.  Grace continues to be mad, as she plays in the sand, and is clearly very annoyed.  A few minutes after this conversation, my uncle, Mike, comes strolling into the house. Grace sprints toward him, and asks if they can go swimming.  They beg and plead, but Mike thinks that it is clearly a bad idea.  Finally, my uncle Mike gives in.  They run upstairs to get changed, with ecstatic looks on their faces.  I can hear them running around upstairs, and finally they come downstairs, and are ready to go swimming.

They run down to the lake and jump into the cold, murky water.  It looked like they were having so much fun. They swim for about 10 minutes, until Grace decides that she is bored, again.  I take Grace out of the water and tell Anna and Sophia to stay on the beach until I was back.  I knew that they wouldn’t listen to me, but they would be safe because Mike was on the porch.  The porch was close, about ten feet away from the lake.  If something happened I was sure that Mike would be able to keep them safe.

I walked up the stairs and into the house.  As soon as we got into the house, Grace ran into the living room, to watch TV.  This was when I heard the screams.  I looked outside in time to see Mike dive into the shallow waters.  Anna and Sophia had swam out to the deep waters.  He swam as fast as he could to get to them.  I ran outside.  My heart rate was speeding up,  everything was silent.  It was hard to face the truth, my cousins were drowning, and it was my fault.  I got outside just in time to see that Mike had already saved them.  

They were safe.

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