Rudy Galvan, 62, spent every Saturday from April to August camped by the minor league stadium concession stand, selling hand-restored vintage baseball bats to collectors and starstruck little leaguers. He’d retired from 30 years as a high school woodshop teacher three years prior, and the bat gig was less about the money and more about getting out of the empty four-bedroom he’d shared with his late wife, Ellie, for 28 years. His biggest flaw, the one his adult kids ribbed him about every time they visited from Portland, was that he never let himself want anything that felt even slightly selfish. He’d turned down a fishing trip to Alaska with his old shop class coworkers last year because he felt guilty leaving the house for two weeks, like he was abandoning the ghost of Ellie, somehow.
It was Clara, Ellie’s younger sister. He hadn’t seen her in 12 years, not since Ellie’s 50th birthday party, right before Clara moved to Arizona for her first marriage. She was 58 now, her dark hair streaked with silver at the temples, the same tiny scar above her left eyebrow from when she’d crashed a dirt bike at their family cabin in 1998. She stood so close he could smell the coconut shampoo she’d used since she was a teenager, mixed with the lime wedge squeezed into her beer, and he froze, his throat tight. He’d always felt a stupid, unspoken spark with Clara, back when he was married, something he’d buried so deep he’d almost forgotten it existed.
She laughed, low and warm, and grabbed a handful of napkins from the counter behind her, dabbing at the wet spot on his chest. Her knuckles brushed the thin, pale scar on his left pec, the one he’d gotten from a table saw accident in 2013, and she paused, her fingers lingering for half a second before she pulled back. “I remember that,” she said, her voice softer now. “Ellie told me you refused to go to the ER until you finished the bunk beds for the kids.”
He nodded, still reeling, and let her lead him to a vinyl booth in the back of the beer garden, away from the hooting crowd of fans screaming about the rain delay. They talked first about the game, about the 19-year-old shortstop the team had just called up who was batting .342, about his bat business, about her recent divorce and her new job as a dental hygienist at the clinic downtown. He kept catching himself leaning in across the table, his elbows propped on the sticky Formica, fighting the urge to reach across and touch her hand, guilt coiling tight in his gut every time he thought about Ellie. He kept waiting for the disgust to hit, for that voice in his head to tell him he was being disrespectful, but it never came. All he felt was that same warm, fizzy buzz he’d gotten when he was 22 and first kissed Ellie, like he was 10 feet off the ground.
The rain hammered the tin roof so hard he had to lean in closer to hear her, their knees brushing under the table when he shifted forward. She told him she’d moved back to town two weeks prior, had asked around about him, had been planning to stop by his bat table that day before the rain hit. “Ellie and I talked about you, once, a few months before she died,” she said, and he went still, his beer bottle halfway to his mouth. She held his gaze, no hesitation, no look away, and her voice was steady. “She said you’d spend the rest of your life playing it safe, that you’d never let yourself be happy if you thought it would make anyone else upset. She told me if I ever got the chance to knock some sense into you, I should do it.”
The knot in his chest unraveled, slow and warm, and he didn’t overthink it when he reached across the table, lacing his fingers through hers. Her palm was soft, a little calloused at the fingertips from the pottery classes she’d mentioned taking, and she squeezed his hand tight, no awkwardness, no pulling back. The announcer came over the speaker a minute later, saying the rain had passed, the field was being dragged, the game would resume in 15 minutes. Neither of them moved to stand.
He lifted their laced hands, pressed a quick, gentle kiss to the back of her knuckles, and asked if she wanted to skip the rest of the game, head back to his house, see the workshop where he restored the bats. She nodded, grinning, and slipped her free hand into the side pocket of his flannel as they stood, their shoulders brushing as they walked past the crowd of fans heading back to the stands. The hem of her raincoat brushed his calf as they stepped out into the damp, post-storm breeze, the sweet smell of cut grass from the field wrapping around them before they reached the parking lot.
