I’m 26 years old, but suddenly I’m six again, staring mesmerized at a scattering of coins at the bottom of a wishing well

I’m collecting all the stray clothes that need laundering from the corners they hide in: pajamas under the kids’ beds, socks next to the shoe rack, and my husband’s pants from behind the bathroom door. Shower water has leaked across the bathroom floor, and I listen to the clink-clink as a cascade of coins pours out of my husband’s pants pocket.

The coins spin wildly across the tiles and roll into the pool of water. I stand stock-still, staring at them as they settle, the rolling eddies around them calming. They wink at me from under the surface of the now-still water.

I’m 26 years old, but suddenly I’m six again, staring mesmerized at a scattering of coins at the bottom of a wishing well.

I have a feeling the wishing well was in a zoo; I’m not sure why. A cousin took us — that I do clearly recall because when we came home and told our parents about the well, my father said disapprovingly, “We don’t believe in such things, you know that.” But I was six years old, and I didn’t quite know that at the time.

There was a pool of shallow water with an old tree bough inside, surrounded by a fence that we pressed our faces against. It was cold, and we were all wearing hats. My little brother’s looked silly because it didn’t fit him properly, and I told him so.

We climbed up the little wall to stare through the fence at the tree bough. Then we looked down into the greenish water. Visitors had dropped coins there — mostly pennies, a few pounds. I wondered how I could reach that money. I wondered why someone had thrown the coins away.

“It’s because it’s a wishing well,” my cousin said authoritatively. “When you throw pennies in, you can wish for something. Go on,” she ordered. “Wish!”