Skin Flap in the Councilman's Pool

I grew up in a very well-to-do neighborhood, except I was not well-to-do at all. It was the early 1990s, and I loved hanging out with my stepsister and spending all day outside. My slightly older stepsister would let me ride on the handlebars of her bike because I couldn’t keep up with her on my own little kid’s bike. During summer break, we would ride to the nearest gas station and buy gummy bears.

My stepsister and I would laugh and play together all day, and I still get nostalgic thinking about it. Sometimes, though, we managed to get ourselves into a bit of trouble in our socially competitive surroundings.

This is the story of how we got invited to our councilman neighbor’s mansion—and how I left a piece of myself behind.

It was a few weeks before the biggest pool party on the block. I was sitting on the handlebars of my stepsister’s bike as we headed out for our usual gummy bear run. On the way, a speeding suburbanite cut us off, forcing my stepsister to stop short.

I went flying.

I threw out my hands to keep my face from hitting the pavement, but it was a pretty fruitless effort. My right hand took the worst of it. The top layer of skin had been sliced away along nearly the entire length of my palm and was hanging on as a large flap. My knees looked like raw hamburger meat from scraping across the asphalt.

My stepsister was horrified and felt terribly guilty. She immediately took me home, but, of course, I received no medical treatment because my father was about as neglectful a parent as one could imagine. Instead, my stepsister bandaged my hand and gave me a hug, doing the best she could to take care of me.

By the time the pool party arrived, my wounds had healed enough to stop bleeding. My stepsister had promised to take me, and she kept her word. My knees were covered in scabs, while the loose skin on my palm was hidden beneath a sizable Band-Aid because, frankly, the whole thing was pretty unsightly.

Once we got to the party, we were in heaven.

There was barbecue, music, badminton, and fruit punch. We played limbo and danced to Ace of Base. It was everything a kid could want from an early-’90s summer party.

As the party began winding down and the pool emptied, I decided I desperately wanted to go swimming. My stepsister thought we could sneak in, but there was one problem: the enormous Band-Aid on my hand. So I took it off.

We dove into the pool and played volleyball in the water. We ended up swimming much longer than we intended, and by the time the party was officially over, we climbed out and started walking home.

The whole way back, we talked about how cool it was that we had gotten to go and about all the fun things we had done. Neither of us gave my injured hand another thought.

It wasn’t until we were standing at our front door that my stepsister suddenly asked, “How’s your hand?” I looked down.

That was when I remembered the Band-Aid—and, more importantly, the large flap of dead skin underneath it that had previously had a tendency to flop around.

Except it wasn’t there anymore.

The skin flap was completely gone. All that remained was the thin layer of new skin that had grown beneath it since the accident. My stepsister and I stared at my palm. We knew. Somewhere in the councilman’s swimming pool was approximately four inches of the former palm of my hand.

In a hushed voice, I asked, “Should we go back and tell them?”

My stepsister immediately shut that idea down.

“We can’t go to the councilman and his wife and tell them that we, the poorest people on the street, left a four-inch skin flap in their pool. We’ll never get invited to anything again!”

This seemed like perfectly sound reasoning to me.

I nodded, we went inside, and life continued as usual—with both of us carrying the knowledge that somewhere during that elegant neighborhood pool party, a substantial portion of my palm had detached itself and joined the festivities.

Oh my God.

It’s probably a little late to do anything about it now. To the councilman and his family, wherever you may be: I send my sincerest regrets.

So sorry, sir.