Royce Pritchard, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, has sat in the same scuffed vinyl booth at the Hudsonville VFW Friday night fish fry for 18 straight years, no exceptions. He’d claimed the spot two weeks after his ex-wife Lila left him for the varsity football coach, and he’d guarded it like a terrier ever since, turning away rowdy groups of recent veterans and nosy church ladies alike without a second thought. His routine never wavered: frosty mug of Pabst, two-piece cod plate with extra tartar, crinkle fries well done, no coleslaw, and he was out by 8:30, home in time to watch the end of the Tigers game. The air smelled like fried batter, Old Spice, and stale popcorn, the jukebox stuck on a loop of 70s country most nights.
The jukebox was blaring Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” when someone slid into the booth across from him, not his usual fishing buddy who bailed half the time to help his grandkid with Little League practice. He looked up, fork halfway to his mouth, and froze. Elara Mendez, Lila’s half-sister, 10 years younger than his ex, the kid who used to crash their backyard barbecues in cutoff jeans and steal sips of his beer when Lila wasn’t looking. She was 48 now, the smattering of freckles across her nose still there, her dark hair streaked with a single silver streak above her left ear, tucked back with a frayed leather hair tie. She smelled like coconut sunscreen and peppermint gum, and she was grinning like she knew she was the last person he wanted to see.
He set his fork down, jaw tight. He hadn’t spoken to anyone in Lila’s family since the divorce papers were signed, had turned away her mom when she’d showed up at his house a year later with a jar of her famous dill pickles, too stubborn to let anyone related to the woman who broke his heart be nice to him. That was his flaw, he knew it on some level: he held grudges so tight they left permanent indentations in his palms, cut people off before they could give him a reason to.
“You gonna tell me to leave?” she asked, leaning forward, her elbow brushing his when she reached across the table to grab the extra ketchup bottle next to his mug. Her knee knocked his under the table, accidental, warm even through the heavy denim of his work jeans, and he flinched like he’d been burned. She didn’t pull back, just squirted ketchup on a napkin and dipped a fry off his plate, chewed slow, eyes never leaving his. “Heard you’re the only person within 30 miles who knows how to fix old solid oak furniture. Mom’s rocking chair broke last week, the one she’s had since she was 16. Lila’s in Florida, hasn’t answered her calls in six months. I don’t have anyone else to ask.”
He hesitated, torn between telling her to go to hell and saying yes. He remembered that chair, had sanded the legs down for her mom back when he was still married to Lila, had spent three hours re-gluing the wobbly spindles one rainy Saturday. Elara was there that day, 17, had brought him a glass of lemonade, had asked him to teach her how to carve small wooden animals for her little cousin. He’d said no, Lila had told him she was a wild kid, not worth the trouble.
“$150,” he said finally, taking a sip of his beer, ignoring the little jolt in his chest when she smiled so wide her dimples showed. She wrote her address on a crumpled fast food napkin, slid it across the table, her fingers brushing his for half a second, calloused from her job as a traveling physical therapist, she told him, in town for the next three months to help her mom recover from a hip replacement. She left a second later, waving over her shoulder, and he sat there staring at the napkin for 10 minutes, his fries going cold on the plate.
She showed up at his garage workshop the next afternoon, holding a peach pie in a chipped glass dish, wearing cutoff overalls and a white tank top, bare feet in scuffed white sneakers. The garage smelled like sawdust and lemon polish, the window propped open to let in the sweet smell of the apple trees in his backyard. She set the pie on his workbench, said her mom always told her peach was his favorite, that Lila never remembered that tiny, stupid detail. He didn’t say anything, just took the pie, cut two slices, handed her one on a crumpled paper plate.
They worked on the chair for three hours, him sanding the cracked arm smooth, her holding the spindles steady while he applied wood glue and clamped them down. She sat on the edge of the workbench next to him, her bare calf brushing his forearm every time he reached for a new sheet of sandpaper, and he didn’t pull away. She told him Lila left the coach three years ago, had burned through three more boyfriends since then, never sent her mom so much as a birthday card. She told him she’d had a crush on him when she was 17, used to come over to Lila’s house just to watch him build the back deck, thought he was the quietest, most patient man she’d ever met.
He stopped sanding, looked up at her, and she was leaning in, her face an inch from his, her breath smelling like peach pie and peppermint. He didn’t overthink it, just leaned in too, kissed her soft and slow, the callus on her thumb brushing the side of his jaw when she cupped his face. It didn’t feel wrong, didn’t feel like he was betraying anyone, just felt like something he’d been waiting for for 18 years, even if he didn’t know it existed.
They loaded the fixed rocking chair into the back of her beat-up Ford Ranger as the sun was going down, the sky streaked pink and tangerine over the cornfields at the end of his street. She asked him if he wanted to come over for dinner the next night, said her mom had been asking about him for years, would be thrilled to see him. He nodded, watched her drive away, the tailgate of her pickup rattling as she turned onto the main road.
He walked back into the garage, sawdust still stuck to the knees of his jeans, the faint taste of her cherry lip balm still on his tongue. He grabbed the half-eaten peach pie off the workbench, cut himself a second slice, no guilt this time.
