I gave him a one-word answer—fine—rather than tell him my grandmother had suggested I was falling in love.
I glanced at the time,stunned to see it was midafternoon, when there was a knock on the door of the private meeting room where I’d gone to work.
“Come in,” I said, without standing to open it.
“Break time,” Bishop said, picking up my jacket from where I’d draped it over a chair.
“Where are we going?” I asked as he held it for me to put on.
“Out on the water for an hour. I want to showyou something.”
I glanced at my computer screen. The work would still be there when we returned, and a break sounded nice.
As we walked out and down the boathouse stairs to the dock, my fingers wrapped around my father’s compass in my pocket, wishing I could remember more about the time I spent with him here.
Bishop pulled a canoe from the rack, carried it over his head, set it in the water, and tied it to a cleat so he could grab a paddle.
I stepped in while he held it steady, then he got in and pushed us off.
The lake was calm as we glided through the water.
“Is that what you wanted to show me?” I asked, pointing to the island in front of us.
“It is. Do you remember coming out here when you were younger?”
“Maybe. It’s all fuzzy. I was only four when I was last here.”
A bird hit the water off our bow and disappeared. “What was that?” I yelped.
“A bufflehead,” he responded without missing a beat.
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “Really, or did you make that up?”
He chuckled. “Really. They’re pretty common around here.”
We glided to the island’s dock as smoothly as we’d left the one at the boathouse.
Bishop tied the canoe off at the cleat and reached for my hand to help me out.
We walked to the south end, where there was a fire pit, and sat on one of the four logs that ringed it.
Above us, a chickadee worked at the bark of a birch without any interest in us at all.
“I take it you’ve been out here before.”
He nodded. “I’ve worked a few ops with Sentinel Cyber and the Shadow team who are headquartered here. I got out on the water every chance I got.”
“To fish?”
“Sometimes. Mostly to be still.”
My whole adult life, the work had been the point of every hour. I couldn’t imagine intentionally being still.
I closed my eyes and focused solely on how the breeze coming off the lake felt on my face. It wasunseasonably warm for mid-November. “Indian Summer,” I blurted, turning to face him.
“Yeah? It is. What about it?”
“I remember someone saying it’s only called that in November.”
