“You ran!” she said. Then she looked over her shoulder and saw that Krista was just standing there, watching. Waiting. “Look, here’s how it went. I went back to the lodge to find you a few days later and the other guys said you found out I was under eighteen and that my grandfather was a judge and you ran for your life. Quit your job and took off. I didn’t know I was pregnant—I just knew the guy I gave it up to dumped me and ran. I didn’t realize I was pregnant for another month or two. We were back in Saint Paul. And all I knew about you was your name—Mack. And that you’d lied about everything else.”

“Didn’t you ask someone to find me? Didn’t you ask a few more questions? Because I was here. Just a few miles from—”

“Not long after I went looking for you there was an accident. My little sister drowned. They had to drag the lake to find her body. We packed up and left. This is the first time we’ve been back since then.”

His mouth hung open as he tried to absorb everything. His eyes squinted while he tried to remember. “A kid drowned,” he said softly. “I remember thinking I was glad I wasn’t working at the lodge when that happened. It was big news around here.”

“You should’ve seen the people,” she said. “They were lined up along the shore everywhere, watching. Waiting to see something gruesome.”

“Oh, Jesus, I don’t even know what to say...”

“Maybe nothing. Right now.”

“I don’t know where to begin to make amends...”

“Let’s not talk about amends—there’s plenty of blame to go around. We were kids. It was my misjudgment as well as yours. The only one you should probably make amends to is Andrea... That’s her name, Andrea. She’s beautiful and smart. And I’m not sorry she was born, hard as it was at the time. She was lucky—she had great adoptive parents. Did you marry? Have children?”

He looked shell-shocked but answered. “I’m divorced. I have a son and a daughter. My son is in the Army and my daughter in college. Charley, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you. Sixteen and pregnant.” He groaned and shook his head. “I think at the end of the day you’re lucky you couldn’t find me. I don’t know what I could’ve done to make the situation better. I wasn’t known for wisdom back then. And you? Married?”

She shook her head and her eyes clouded with tears. “In a long-term committed relationship. We have a son. I know this is a lot to absorb...”

“Oh, Jesus... Krista,” he said, turning. She was gone. “I have to talk to Krista...”

“Jake, let me,” Charley said. “You should just let me. I’m not in shock.”

He grabbed her upper arms suddenly. “Charley, I never would have deliberately hurt you. If I’d known, I’d have done anything to help, to step up, but...I’m so sorry you went through all that with no one. I hope your family was supportive.”

“Easy there, big boy,” she said, shucking off his hands. “It was a tough time but in the end we have a daughter who is lovely and well adjusted, no thanks to us. I wanted to keep her but it’s probably better that I didn’t. She understands. We were young and stupid.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “God. I want to meet her, of course. Will she want to meet me? Does she hate me for abandoning you? I should talk to Krista...”

She put her hand on his arm. “I think you should try to untangle your brain, Jake. Krista will be fine. You can talk to her later. You have a phone on you?”

“Yeah,” he said, pulling it out of his pocket.

She held out her hand. “Unlock it and I’ll add my number to your directory. You can call when you’re calmed down, and if you want to talk to Krista I’ll tell her. Okay?”

“You’re pretty calm,” he said. “You don’t seem angry.”

“I’ve had a long time to think about things,” she said, keying in her number. “I’ve already answered all those hard questions—like why I had to give her up. You’re pretty blameless. Except for that tiny inconsequential detail that you lied about your age and then ran like the chicken you are.” She delivered that last with a sympathetic smile.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

She laughed lightly. “I thought I was in love with you, you know.”

“You were too good for me. I liked you a lot. I figured I was doomed. I couldn’t figure out how I was going to tell you I wasn’t a college kid but just a poor, dumb farm kid. A nineteen-year-old farm kid with no college degree.”

“It was a long time ago. You better not be lying to my cousin, though. If you do that I’ll come after you. She just doesn’t deserve any more bad breaks.”

“I told you, that was then. I’m not that guy anymore.”

“Go home, Jake. Clear your head.”

He turned and started to walk away. Then he turned back. “Charley, thank you. Thank you for having our daughter.”

* * *

“Where is she?” Charley asked Meg.

“I heard bathwater. Was that him?”

“How could it happen like that, huh? How could the father of my baby turn up dating my cousin? My cousin who has never had a boyfriend in her life?”

“Well, there was that one she shot,” Meg said, making a face.

“That wasn’t a boyfriend, that was a kidnapper.”

She knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you in the tub?” she asked. “Can I come in?”

“What for?” Krista called back.

Charley opened the door. Krista was covered in bubbles. “I told Jake I would talk to you.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t think I need the details. I get it. He’s the guy who knocked you up.”

“That’s right,” Charley said.

“Your heart was broken, I remember that. You were a mess. You suffered magnificently.”

“I think you should listen to me,” Charley said. “My heart was broken regularly and dramatically for at least a few years and your friend Jake wasn’t the only culprit. You missed a whole fundamental part of adolescence because you were running wild with creeps and miscreants. Tragic broken hearts, one right after another, is the hallmark of being a teenage girl. I was also in a deep and bloody battle with my mother and Jake was the only thing I could fantasize into a way out of my predicament. But even though I had a crush on him and ended up pregnant, he wasn’t what I really wanted. I thought I wanted who he was pretending to be, but that wouldn’t have worked. And I ended up a pregnant teenager sent away to Florida to have and give away my baby.”

“Is that what I’m supposed to understand?” Krista asked.

“Who are you angry with?” Charley asked.

“Myself!” Krista said. And then she slid under the water. She rose a moment later and wiped the bubbles from her face.

Charley sat on the closed toilet lid. “I had twenty boyfriends in high school. Most of them lasted a few days but there were a couple that lasted weeks. It didn’t matter if I broke up with them or they with me—I was always crushed. I do think Jake was one of the cutest ones.”

“Why’d you have so many boyfriends? Because you were pretty and popular?”

“You don’t remember right—I was kind of a late bloomer. I was better looking in my twenties. I really came into my own when I got a talk show. Nothing makes a woman beautiful like self-esteem and confidence. But back to your Jake...”

“He’s not mine! And definitely not now!” She dunked again.

“Oh, settle down. So, Jake lied to get his job at the lodge. He said he was older than he was, said he was a law student with an important father. We hooked up and of course, being the brilliant teenager I was, I wasn’t on the pill. Can you imagine me asking Louise for birth control pills? I’d rather ask Godzilla. And the genius Jake said he had a condom but he didn’t get it out fast enough. Hmm,” she paused, thinking. “The whole thing was bumbling and clumsy. I wonder if it was his first time? Well, I’m not asking him. So—there you have it. We’d been flirting and making out about three weeks, tops. And it changed a lot of lives. But we’re not long-lost lovers, Krista. We’re both pretty embarrassed by how stupid we were. I was as stupid as he was, all right? Let’s have that straight, should we?”

“You must have loved him,” Krista said.

“I loved love! I wasn’t going to come even close to figuring out what it took to really love someone for at least another five years. Krista, teenagers have no sense. Poor judgment is more normal than good judgment. In fact, those who traveled through those years without major fuckups were lucky.”

“I’m living proof of that,” she said.

“I don’t know that you have to be nervous about Jake because of our history any more than you would be distrustful of me. But there is a favor I’m going to ask.”

“I’d do anything for you, Charley. You gave me my first good underwear.”

“Andrea wants to know who her father is and I’m going to tell her. She will want to meet him. Know him.”

“So?”

“That might happen around here. She was undecided about coming to the lake for a quick visit but when I tell her... It may change her plans.”

“What about him?” she asked. “Does he want to meet her?”

“Oh, yes, though he was pretty blindsided by the news. And he’s scared she’ll hate him, but she’s not that kind of person. He, ah, thanked me for having her.”

Krista went underwater again.

She finally came up and sputtered soap out of her mouth. “Stop that!” Charley said.

Krista wiped the soap off her face with a washcloth. “Is this dating in the free world?”

“It can get a lot rockier than this. Jake seems to have turned out all right.”