The pool passed inspection two weeks later. I replaced the hidden picket, added a self-closing inner gate, and changed the combination again. Part of me wanted to keep the water private. But June had loved Saturday swims, and I did not want Maren's choices to turn generosity into a thing I feared. I wrote rules that fit on one page: invited hours, a named adult at the water, no borrowed keys, and immediate closure when the blue porch hook was empty.

I offered one supervised swim each month if two adults completed my safety session. Devon registered first. Maren arrived ten minutes early and sat in the front row. She did not perform an apology for the room. She practiced reaching assists, learned why a sagging cover was not a net, and repeated the emergency steps until she could do them without prompting. When I passed her completion card, she said she had mistaken familiarity with June for permanent permission. It was the first sentence from her that did not contain a defense.

The neighborhood's planned swim was small. Eli helped check the gate. Poppy placed her yellow goggles in a basket instead of leaving them on my porch. Maren stayed beside the shallow end with her phone zipped in a bag. After the last family left, I turned off the pump and sat with my feet in the water. For once, silence around the pool did not feel like June's absence. It felt like a boundary doing its quiet work.

Then I noticed the porch light blinking. It was not the bulb; someone inside the house was pressing the wall switch. I had locked both doors, and my keys were beside me. Through the kitchen window, a small shadow crossed the floor. I reached for the rescue pole before realizing how useless it would be indoors. The light blinked twice more, the signal June used when she needed help carrying groceries. I walked toward the back door and saw a wet handprint appear on the glass from the inside.