Arlo Mendez, 62, spent 28 years perched in fire lookout towers across western Montana before he retired, his only consistent company a beat-up two-way radio and the sharp, acrid smell of pine smoke that still clung to his work boots even when he hadn’t been near a blaze in months. His biggest flaw, the one his niece nagged him about every Sunday brunch, was that he held grudges longer than he held any other relationship—most notably an 18-year grudge against Elara Voss, the woman he’d blamed for his wife Lila’s death on a rogue whitewater kayaking trip back in 2005. He’d avoided every local event he thought she might attend for nearly two decades, only showing up to the annual Missoula harvest fair this year because his niece had begged him to man her baked goods booth while she ran to pick up more jars of honey.
The air smelled like roasted sweet corn, fried dough dusted with cinnamon, and the faint, sharp tang of fermenting cider from the tent at the far end of the field. A bluegrass band plucked a wobbly version of *Foggy Mountain Breakdown* near the entrance, kids screaming as they chased each other with face paint smudged across their cheeks. Arlo was wiping powdered sugar off his flannel sleeve when he spotted her, 10 yards away, leaning against a hay bale and laughing at something the guy running the pumpkin weigh-off had said. She wore a faded green flannel tied around her waist, ripped black jeans, steel-toe work boots, and silver hoop earrings that caught the golden October sun. Her dark hair was braided down her back, streaked with more gray than he remembered, and a tattoo of a chanterelle mushroom peeked out from the cuff of her t-shirt.
He froze, already turning to make a run for his beat-up Ford F-150, when she locked eyes with him. She paused, her smile fading for half a second, then pushed off the hay bale and walked straight over. She stopped less than a foot away, close enough he could smell the lavender and pine salve she wore on her hands, the faint fizz of hard cider on her breath. “Arlo Mendez. I’d know that scar across your forearm anywhere.” She nodded at the thin, silvery line he’d gotten pulling a rookie firefighter out of a 2007 blaze, and before he could think to pull away, she reached out and brushed her index finger across it. Her skin was calloused, warm, the touch so light it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.
For 18 years, he’d imagined running into her and yelling, telling her she was the reason Lila had gotten in that kayak, the reason he’d spent every night since alone in a cabin too big for one person. But the words stuck in his throat. “I thought you moved to Oregon,” he said instead, his voice rougher than he meant it to be.
She laughed, a low, throaty sound he remembered from backyard barbecues 20 years prior, when he’d secretly thought she was the prettier of Lila’s two best friends, even if he’d never said it out loud. “Never left. I run that little herbal apothecary on Highway 12. Been buying your firewood for three years, actually. Leave cash under the end of that split oak log you leave by the edge of your drive.” He blinked. He’d wondered who the anonymous buyer was, the one who always left a 20-dollar bill even when he left twice the wood they’d asked for.
She nodded at the cider tent. “C’mon. I owe you a drink. And we need to talk about Lila.” He hesitated, then followed her, his boots crunching across the loose hay scattered across the grass. They sat at a splintered picnic table at the far edge of the tent, far enough from the crowd that no one would overhear them. She told him Lila had hidden the fact that her breast cancer had come back, that the kayaking trip was something she’d planned for months, that she’d made Elara promise not to tell Arlo because she didn’t want him to treat her like she was fragile, like she couldn’t do the things she loved. Elara had kept that promise, even when Arlo stopped returning her calls, even when he spread the word around town that she was reckless, that she’d gotten his wife killed.
Arlo sat quiet for a long time, staring at the half-full cup of cider in his hand, the anger he’d carried for almost two decades melting so fast it made his chest hurt. He’d spent 18 years hating the wrong person, hating the only other person who’d known Lila as well as he did, who missed her as much as he did. When he looked up, she was watching him, her dark eyes soft, no anger, no resentment on her face. “I’m sorry,” he said, the words coming out hoarse.
She reached across the table, her hand covering his, her calloused thumb brushing across the knuckles that were swollen from years of splitting wood. “I know. I would’ve hated me too, if I was you.” She told him she’d been widowed 10 years, that her husband had left her for a 28-year-old yoga instructor six months before he died in a car crash on I-90, that she’d lived alone ever since, too scared to let anyone get close, too scared they’d leave too.
They talked for another hour, laughing about the time Lila had dyed Elara’s hair neon pink for a bachelorette party, about the way Arlo used to sneak extra slices of pie after Lila went to bed, about the chanterelle mushrooms that grew on the 40 acres of forest land Elara had inherited from her dad, the same land Arlo and Lila used to hike on every weekend in the fall. When she stood up to leave, she slung her wicker basket of dried herbs and mushroom spore kits over her shoulder, then nodded at the parking lot. “I got a batch of venison chili simmering on the stove at my place. And the mushrooms are just starting to fruit. You wanna come see?”
Arlo paused, glancing over at his niece’s booth, where she was already busy flirting with the guy running the kettle corn stand, clearly not needing him anymore. He grabbed his jacket off the back of the picnic table, then reached out to take the heavy basket from Elara, his fingers brushing hers when she handed it over. She didn’t pull away, just laced her fingers through his for a beat, her palm warm against his, before she started walking toward the parking lot, her braid swinging over her shoulder as she went. He followed, the weight of 18 years of anger gone, the faint smell of lavender and pine clinging to the sleeve of his flannel, the taste of cinnamon and cider still on his tongue.
