Arlo Mendez, 62, has been a beekeeper in northern Michigan for 22 years, ever since he quit his corporate sales job to move upstate with his late wife. He’s stubborn to a fault, has refused every blind date his sister has tried to set him up on in the eight years since his wife passed, and still insists on checking all 42 of his hives alone even when his knees ache so bad he can barely climb the orchard hill at dusk. The annual fall town festival is the only social event he attends all year, and even then he only sticks around long enough to sell his stock of wildflower honey before heading home to his quiet, empty house.
Mid-October air bites at his cheeks the day of the festival, wood smoke curling from the cider food truck at the end of the street, kids yelling as they chase each other with sticky caramel apples. He’s wiping a smudge of raw honey off the edge of a mason jar, calloused fingers still sticky from checking hives that morning, the scar across his left knuckle from a bad bee sting two years back bright pink in the cold, when a woman leans into his booth. She’s wearing a faded gray wool cardigan, jeans scuffed at the knees, holding a paper cup of spiced cider that steams up around her face, and her shoulder brushes his bicep through his thick flannel when she sniffs the open sample jar on his table. He catches the soft scent of lavender hand cream mixed with cinnamon from her drink, and freezes. He hasn’t been that close to someone who wasn’t family or a regular customer dropping off a jar for refill in years.
She holds eye contact when she pulls back, dark green eyes crinkling at the corners, and says she’s been looking for uncut wildflower honey for months, ever since she moved to town to take care of her mom with advanced arthritis. He nods, fumbles for the honey dipper to hand her a sample, and his grip slips, dripping a thick golden drop right on the inside of her wrist. He swears under his breath, grabs a napkin from the stack under the table, and dabs at it before he can think better of touching her. His fingers brush her pulse point, and he feels it jump quick under his skin. She doesn’t pull away. Just laughs, soft, and says it’s fine, she’s had worse messes sorting through the children’s section at the library where she works part time.
They talk for 20 minutes, his sister glancing over from the pumpkin pie booth next to him, grinning like she knows exactly what’s going on. He learns she’s 58, widowed three years, moved up from Chicago after her mom could no longer live alone. She learns he keeps his hives spread across 10 acres of old apple orchard behind his house, still sleeps with his wife’s old wool blanket at the foot of his bed even though it’s got more holes than fabric these days. When she mentions she’s been trying to teach herself to make mead, he offers to give her a jar of his rawest fall honey, the stuff he usually saves for himself, even offers to walk her through the first batch if she wants. The second the words leave his mouth he regrets them. He’s spent eight years convinced letting anyone new into his space, his routine, meant betraying his wife’s memory, that losing someone again would break what little peace he’d built. He starts to backtrack, says he’s probably swamped with hive checks the next few weeks, no pressure, she doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to. She writes her number on a crumpled library receipt, shoves it in his flannel pocket, and says Saturday works for her, no strings attached, just honey and mead and whatever.
He stares at the receipt for three days, crumpling it up and smoothing it out again at least a dozen times. He almost throws it out twice. His sister teases him that he’s being an idiot, that he hasn’t talked that long to anyone who isn’t complaining about bee stings in years. He tells her to mind her own business, but he texts Clara Friday night, says his place is at 3 PM Saturday, bring the yeast she talked about, he’s got the carboys and the honey ready.
She shows up 10 minutes early, holding a paper bag with yeast and a six pack of hard cider for after, rain dripping off the brim of her worn baseball cap. His kitchen smells like cinnamon, he baked an apple pie that morning just in case, he tells himself it’s not for her, he just had extra apples from the orchard. They set up the carboy on the kitchen counter, side by side, their elbows brushing every time one of them reaches for the measuring cup or the stirring spoon. He explains how the honey’s already got small traces of wild yeast from the orchard nectar, she listens, leaning in so close her hair brushes his jaw when she nods.
When they’re done sealing the carboy, she sits on the edge of his counter, takes a sip of the cider he poured her, and says she almost bailed three times on the drive over, scared she was pushing too hard, scared he’d think she was just some lonely new widow looking for a rebound. He leans against the counter next to her, their knees touching, and admits he almost didn’t text her at all, that he’d spent so long shutting everyone out he forgot what it felt like to talk to someone who got the quiet, hollow weight of losing a person you built your whole life around. She reaches over, laces her fingers through his, her palm soft against his calloused one, and says no one’s asking them to replace anyone, just to make something new.
They sit there for an hour, talking, drinking cider, watching the rain streak down the kitchen windows. When she says she should head home to check on her mom, he grabs his raincoat off the hook by the door, walks her to her car, holds the umbrella over both of them so the rain doesn’t soak her hair. His arm wraps around her waist to pull her closer when a gust of wind hits, and she rests her head against his shoulder for two steps, just long enough for him to feel the warmth of her cheek through his coat. He opens her car door for her, hands her the extra jar of honey he set aside that morning, and she leans in, presses a soft, quick kiss to his cheek before she gets in. She rolls the window down as she pulls out of the driveway, yells that she’ll bring pepperoni pizza next weekend to check on the mead, and he waves, standing there in the rain until her taillights disappear around the bend. He reaches up, touches the spot on his cheek where her lips were, still warm even through the cold rain.
