I stood up on the lake bottom and laughed, pushing my hair out of my face. “It’s not exactly deep here,” I said, shaking the water from my hands. “I’m in no danger of drowning. I think you should come in. The water feels great.” I leaned back in the water and let the gentle waves carry me across the surface toward deeper water. “I’m serious, Halla. Get your bones in here.”
“I just took a shower. Besides, I’m rather enjoying myself right here,” he answered.
I snuck a peek at him sitting at the end of the dock, his feet in the water, and his eyes on my wet chest. I didn’t care. I’d prefer they were on my chest rather than my leg.
“Where are you from, Bishop?” I asked, lowering my leg a little bit more into the water so he couldn’t see the brace. It was stupid since I was going to have to get out of the water eventually, but no one ever said self-preservation made sense.
“A little town smack dab in the middle of Illinois. It was loud, hot, and stunk like big industry most of the time.”
“I bet you never thought you’d be sitting on a dock overlooking a small lake in an even smaller town.”
His eyes drifted to the sky for a moment before he answered. “It wasn’t on my radar, that’s for sure. I just knew I needed a change. It was weird when the Lake Pendle position opened up. I can tell you how many times I’ve applied for a job that had one opening for physical education and one for English.”
“One?” I asked, and he pointed at me with a strange look on his face.
“This was a first and I’ve been teaching for eleven years. I’ve worked for three different school districts, but never once saw an opening like this one.”
“Serendipity?” I asked, and the air was filled with his laughter as his head nodded.
“I hope it’s serendipity, for sure,” he agreed. “I’m tired of being unhappy with where I am in life. Moving here in the middle of a school year and living in an old run-down cabin for months was the first time I found myself truly happy in years. My commute was short and stress-free, I had time to get to know my students and create a fun curriculum to keep them active in the winter, and I had something to look forward to with the new house,” he explained, pointing to the place behind him.
“Do you miss the people you left behind?”
“I wasn’t close to anyone but my daughter, and she’s an adult now.”
I sat up in the water. “Your daughter? You’re divorced?”
He shook his head as I swam over and hoisted myself up to sit on the edge of the dock. I would dry in the sunshine while he explained that bombshell. “I was never married to her mother. My daughter is eighteen now and moved to Southern California for college. She plans to come to visit in July.”
“Wait, she’s eighteen? How can you have an adult daughter if you’ve only been teaching eleven years?”
“She was born just before I turned seventeen, that’s how,” he said, shaking his head slightly.
“Oh, wow, I guess that was a shock.”
“Shockingly dumb on my part,” he said on a chuckle. “Her mother and I were counselors at a summer camp and had a fling. We were responsible, but accidents happen when you’re only using condoms and trying not to get caught by the other camp counselors.”
“Not an infrequently told story,” I agreed. “It must have been difficult.”
He leaned back on the palms of his hands and bumped me in the shoulder. “Not as much for me as for her mother. She didn’t live with me, so I didn’t shoulder that responsibility for her, you know?”
I nodded while I squeezed the lake water out of my dress. “That’s usually the case in those situations. Not your fault, just what it was.”
“That’s a refreshing statement.”
“Why?” I asked, confused.
“Usually, when I mention my daughter, women make an instant judgment about the situation. That I was a deadbeat dad or didn’t take responsibility for my actions.”
“I would never assume that, Bishop.”
“I did what I could while I went to college and worked to support her. I took care of her on weekends and took her as many weeknights as I could to give her mom a break. I made bottles, changed diapers, and cleaned up vomit. I was lucky that her grandparents on her mother’s side were godsends and took care of her while her mom and I went to school. My parents weren’t in the picture, and my grandparents raised me. I wasn’t going to ask them to raise their great-grandchild, too.”
“Some kids would have.”
“The difference was, from the moment I knew Athena existed, I wanted her. I wanted to be part of her life. I wasn’t going to be a no-show kind of dad. I might have been a kid myself, but if I was old enough to create her, I was old enough to take care of her.”
“That’s,” I paused and made the mind-blown motion with my hands. “Not too many guys would do that, Bishop. You know that, right?”
He shrugged and stared off over the lake. “Maybe not, but I’ve never been like other guys. I loved pushing a baby in a stroller while I ran around the track. She didn’t ask to be created, so she wasn’t going to suffer because the timing of her birth was inconvenient for us. Her mother and I both agreed on that point.”
“I’m absolutely certain now that not too many guys are like you, Bishop,” I said, trying not to sound as shocked as I felt. “Athena. That’s a beautiful name.”
“The goddess of wisdom. Athena has always been wise. An old soul, my grandmother used to say. The first time I held her in my arms, it just didn’t matter that I was sixteen,
