Gumpy's Field of Diamonds

I try not to cry. The funeral was moving, but quiet and scarcely attended. The sun is in my eyes. It reflects and refracts off the water in sparkling waves that seemed like a field of diamonds when I was a child. One spot catches my eye and I can make out the glistening black outline of dozens of old tires Gumpy had hurled into the lake.

No sense paying good money to haul it to the recycling place! Saving my money to build a better world for you.

I sit on my favorite rock by, what used to be the edge of my grandfather’s property, wiping tears from my cheek with the back of my hand. I have happy memories of this farm – yet so much of what happened here was ugly under the surface, like submerged, leaching tires. Even murky water sparkles under the sun.

The smell of the house that I once thought was love, is mould from neglect and years of living by the water. The money Gumpy saved by refusing to maintain the house or recycle, is buried somewhere behind the barn in old coffee cans. Buried, like my memories of what I’d seen him do to Gumma. She told me her crooked arm was made that way to hug me tighter.

It wasn’t just old tires that got dumped in the lake.

When my mother complained about pollution or climate change, Gumpy would declare her warnings "malarkey"
. He used pesticides on his felids and rowed out into the water late at night to get rid of old oil and paint cans. I watch the result now, in the sludgy muck that stretches for yards where water once lapped.

Is it a coincidence that I married a man who is as transparent as glass and ardent about honesty? If he senses something is not what it seems, my husband will dig and ask and pester until the truth is exposed, no matter how ugly. He is behind the barn now, with a metal detector. Our daughter shares his curiosity and wonder. What are we doing to build a better world for her? Should I tell her the truth about Gumpy?

She steps to my side, pointing at the gooey sludge rimming the polluted water.

“Look Mommy! Chocolate pudding and a field of diamonds!”

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