The Pool Wasn’t Warm Enough

The house sat like a postcard at the top of the hill, wrapped in white light. The rental listing had promised panoramic views of the valley, resort-style infinity pool, modern design touches throughout.

It had also promised peace.

Tessa stood barefoot on the smooth slate tile of the patio, her wine sweating in the glass, her swimsuit still damp from the dip she’d taken earlier—half swim, half cleanse. The pool shimmered like glass behind her. Mountains rolled beyond the fence, blue and distant, like a dream she wasn’t part of anymore.

It really was beautiful. Almost too beautiful.

Inside the house, her husband was slicing limes and talking to someone on speakerphone. Probably Cal. Or maybe Cal’s wife. They’d both arrived with wine and oversized smiles earlier that afternoon, ready to “celebrate a fresh chapter.” Tessa wasn’t sure which chapter they meant. The miscarriage? The sabbatical? The months they didn’t speak?

She took a long sip.

The patio furniture was all perfect: curated, expensive, cream-colored. The glass doors slid open with a whisper. Even the lemon tree by the pool was fake—realistic but fake.

She couldn’t stop thinking about that.

“Do you love it?” Cal’s wife had asked earlier, gesturing to the house as if she’d built it herself. Tessa had nodded because what else do you say? Yes, it’s stunning. Yes, the pool is clean. Yes, everything matches and nothing is broken.

But nothing in this place had fingerprints. Or crumbs. Or dust that settled into the corners like a body letting go.

It was the kind of house you could disappear in.

At sunset, the hills glowed gold like someone had airbrushed them. Tessa watched the color fade from behind her sunglasses, her feet tucked under a throw blanket that was clearly for decoration.

She could hear Cal laughing through the open kitchen doors. Her husband was laughing too, a low, familiar sound she hadn’t heard in weeks. He hadn’t laughed at the ultrasound, or in the car on the way home after. He hadn’t laughed when she’d sobbed into the floor tiles or asked if he still wanted to try again.

But he was laughing now. Here. In this perfect house.

She glanced at the pool again.

It was technically heated. But when she dipped her foot in earlier, it had been just cold enough to pull a gasp from her. Her husband said it was fine. That she was being sensitive. That her body just needed time to feel like hers again.

But the water hadn’t welcomed her. Not really.

It reminded her of the waiting room at the clinic—sterile, still, the kind of place where sound doesn’t echo because it’s never quite allowed to begin.

“Tessa?”

Her name floated out from the kitchen. She didn’t answer. The sun was slipping behind the ridge, and she could feel the moment stretching—longer than it should, like a pulled thread she didn’t know how to snip.

There was a bird earlier. A crow maybe. It had landed at the edge of the infinity pool and stared at her. Not skittish. Just watching. She’d reached for her phone to take a picture, but by the time she aimed, it was gone.

She wondered if it had been real at all.

“I’m going for a walk,” she said when her husband finally stepped onto the patio.

“Now? It’s almost dark.”

“Exactly.”

He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. “Don’t go far,” he said, but it was half-hearted.

She didn’t. Just far enough to slip past the fake lemon tree, past the hedge, down the short slope where the patio light no longer reached.

The sky was lavender now. The kind of color that makes you ache for something you can’t name.

She sat in the grass and watched the house. From this angle, she couldn’t see the clutter-free counters or the glossy kitchen backsplash. Just the lights. The silhouettes. People laughing.

And she felt it again—that disconnect.

Like she was watching a play from backstage. Like she’d wandered into the wrong set and didn’t know her lines.

Somewhere behind her, a twig snapped. Not loud. Just enough to make her turn her head.

No one was there.

She blinked. Maybe it was a rabbit. Or maybe it was the bird. Maybe she had imagined the sound entirely.

She wanted the view to mean something. She wanted the golden sky to feel like hope, not artifice. She wanted the perfect house to fix something, to press its edges into the hollow space in her chest and say, There. All better.

But it didn’t.

It couldn’t.

She pressed her palms into the grass, grounding herself. The dew was starting to gather. Her skin was beginning to prickle with chill.

And for a moment, she wondered if she could just stay there. Quiet. Outside the frame.

When she stood up again, the lights from the house were blurring slightly, the way they do when your eyes are wet and you pretend they aren’t.

She walked back toward the patio, slower this time.

Inside, someone had turned on music. Low, jazzy. Her husband was standing at the counter, back turned, pouring another drink.

She paused before stepping through the glass doors.

He looked up. Saw her.

“There you are,” he said, smiling.

She nodded. Just once.

And walked past him, into the quiet of the guest room, where the walls were painted the color of silence and the sheets still smelled like detergent.

She closed the door.

Not hard. Not soft. Just…final enough.

Author’s Note:

This story explores the unsettling experience of being somewhere beautiful but feeling emotionally detached, Something many of us know all too well. The pool, the house, the view: they’re all perfect, but Tessa’s internal world is unraveling quietly in the background. It’s about what grief does in silence, and how something can feel just a little too polished when your own world is not.