I’ve memorized it. I’ve memorized the way to swing off the guard chair without slipping into the pool. I’ve memorized how far to swerve on the deck in order to avoid their teasing splashes. I’ve memorized the evidence of the sun on my back and the white lines it never reaches.

I didn’t get the newspaper job. So, I’m wearing a red lifeguard shirt for the fifth year in a row and wondering why, why, why.

Three years ago, I taught her swimming lessons. She laughed all the time, like laughter is easy. Two years ago, she came to swim sometimes, going in slower than the younger kids, dipping her toes to knees to waist to head. One year ago, she came with her friends and sat on the picnic tables, leaning back lazily, showing skin, and texting. “Hey Kate!” She’d call.

I’d wave. “Come swimming!”

She’d shake her head because she was too old for that. I wondered why, for people like her, growing up is a tragedy.

Then, at Christmas, when the pool was buried under three feet of snow, someone told me about it. How life had gotten too hard for one teenager to handle alone. How her mother’s heart must feel like it has been ripped from its proper place, making funeral preparations for her young, laughing, blonde-haired daughter.

I work at the pool again this summer wondering, why, why, why. Why not, God, send me to Ecuador for three months to clean orphanages? Why not give me a job that would benefit my career? Why not?

I don’t have an answer. But all I see in each kid’s face every day is a blonde girl’s smile and my last chance. All I know is nail-pierced hands. Hope shines through storm clouds as Ben grabs his knees and jumps, yelling “Canonball!”