Elias Voss, 62, spent 28 years perched in 100-foot fire lookout towers across the Superior National Forest, and the only thing he hated more than small talk was crowded, noisy events. His niece had practically frogmarched him to the town’s annual Oktoberfest that afternoon, saying three years of holing up in his cabin with only his coonhound and a stack of western paperbacks was “a violation of the Geneva Conventions for retired guys.” He’d escaped to the far edge of the craft beer tent ten minutes after they arrived, nursing a dark, malty dunkel and pretending to check his beat-up flip phone every time a stranger tried to strike up a conversation. He’d always been a little too stubborn to let anyone see how lonely he actually was, that was his flaw; he’d rather freeze than ask for a match, even when his hands were shaking from cold. The air smelled like roasted brats, cinnamon sugar almonds, and the faint sharp tang of pine blowing in from the nearby woods.
The oompah band had been playing for an hour when he first noticed her, silver streaks laced through the thick braid slung over her shoulder, calloused fingers flying over the buttons of her accordion like she’d been born with the instrument in her lap. She caught him staring twice, each time holding his gaze a beat longer than necessary, a small smirk tugging at the corner of her red-stained mouth. He knew who she was, of course: Mara Hale, his late wife Lila’s cousin, the girl he’d snuck a warm Pabst with behind the beer tent at this exact festival in 1982, back before he’d asked Lila out and Mara had moved to Milwaukee to play in a polka band. He’d only seen her once in the last 15 years, at Lila’s funeral, where she’d hugged him quick and said “Call me if you need anything” before slipping away before he could answer.
He was halfway through his second beer when she took her break, stepping off the small stage and weaving through the crowd toward the tent. She tripped over a half-buried cooler leg three feet away from him, her full Hefeweizen sloshing over the rim of the plastic cup and soaking the left sleeve of his wool flannel. “Shit,” she yelped, fumbling for a stack of napkins on the table next to him, her warm hand brushing his forearm as she dabbed at the wet fabric, the citrusy smell of her wheat beer mixing with the lavender perfume she wore. “I am so sorry, I’ve got two left feet when I’ve been playing accordion for three hours straight.”
Elias’s first instinct was to brush her off, say it was fine, go back to hiding in the corner. But she was already flagging down the bartender, ordering him another dunkel and herself a replacement Hefeweizen, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her he’d planned to leave in 10 minutes. He felt the familiar twist of guilt in his gut, like he was doing something wrong just standing there talking to her, like Lila was watching from somewhere and shaking her head. But then Mara laughed, a loud, throaty sound that cut through the hum of the crowd and the distant thrum of the tuba, and he remembered Lila talking about how Mara was the only person in their family who never took anything too seriously, who’d once dyed her hair neon pink for a 4th of July parade just to make the old guys at the VFW spit out their beer.
They moved to a set of empty hay bales 20 yards away from the crowd, far enough that the noise was softer, that they could hear the wind rustling the oak trees at the edge of the fairgrounds and the crunch of fallen maple leaves under their boots. She told him she’d moved back to town six months prior, that her ex-husband had left her for a 28-year-old dental hygienist in 2019 then dropped dead of a heart attack six months later, that she’d spent the last four years playing small festivals across the Midwest and avoiding family gatherings because she hated the pitying looks. “I saw you at the funeral,” she said, her shoulder brushing his as she leaned in to be heard, their knees knocking together under the edge of the hay bale. “I wanted to say more, but you looked like you wanted to be left alone more than anything. I get that.”
He told her about the lookout tower, about how he’d almost come back to town a dozen times in the last three years but always turned around halfway, about how his coonhound Max had died two months prior and the cabin had felt quieter than it ever had. The guilt faded slow, soft, like snow melting in spring, the longer he talked. Lila had always joked that if she ever went first, he better not spend the rest of his life moping, that she’d come back and haunt him if he didn’t go out and have at least a little fun.
The band’s lead singer called her name from the stage, waving her over for the next set. She stood up, brushing hay off her jeans, and tugged his hand to pull him up with her, her palm rough and warm against his. “I’m playing for another hour,” she said, tilting her chin up to look at him, her eyes bright under the string lights strung above the fairgrounds. “Save me the first polka after I’m done. No bailing, okay?”
He nodded, watching as she walked back to the stage, her braid swinging behind her, and she looked over her shoulder halfway there and winked. He lifted the half-full beer in his hand in a small salute, the damp fabric of his flannel sleeve sticking a little to his forearm, and for the first time in three years, he didn’t feel like rushing back to an empty cabin.
