Clay Bennett, 58, retired US Forest Service ranger who spent 22 years patrolling the Bob Marshall Wilderness, had not so much as glanced at a woman with intent since his wife died seven years prior. His flaw, as his daughter liked to tease, was that he was stubborn enough to treat his widower status like a job he never planned to quit. He’d moved to Boise last year to be closer to his 10-year-old granddaughter, and his weekends followed a rigid routine: mow the lawn, fix whatever was broken in the rental house, hit the VFW post’s Friday night fish fry for two pieces of cod, a side of coleslaw, and a draft Coors, no exceptions.
The AC in the VFW hall was cranked so high that paper napkins skittered across Formica tables, and the air smelled like fried batter, old beer, and the lemon Pledge the volunteers used to wipe down the counters before service. Merle Haggard warbled low from the jukebox by the bar, and Clay was halfway through the line when he looked up and recognized the woman scooping coleslaw behind the serving counter. Clara Marlow, 54, his daughter’s high school art teacher, the same woman he’d last seen 12 years prior at his daughter’s graduation, when he’d spilled lemonade all over the principal’s loafers and she’d laughed so hard she’d snort-laughed into her program. Back then he’d been married, she’d been his kid’s teacher, and he’d written off the spark of attraction as a stupid, irrelevant blip.
Her elbow brushed his wrist when she passed his plate across the counter, and he noticed tiny flecks of cobalt blue and sunflower yellow paint stuck under her clear nail polish, same as he’d remembered. She paused, squinted, then grinned so wide the crinkles at the corners of her eyes deepened. “Clay Bennett? Your hair’s grayer than that old rusted Ford you used to drive was dented.” He huffed a laugh, caught off guard, paid for his meal, and headed for his usual table by the window, but he kept glancing back at the serving line. Every time he did, she caught his eye, no shy look away, just a little half-smile like she was holding a joke just for him.
He was refilling his beer at the bar an hour later when she came out of the kitchen carrying a stack of empty plastic trays, and they almost crashed into each other by the stack of folding chairs. He steadied her by the elbow, his calloused palm wrapping around the soft, warm denim of her jacket sleeve, and the faint smell of lavender dish soap and fried breading rolled off her. “Whoa, easy there,” he said, and she laughed, leaning into his hold for half a second before she righted herself. “I’ve got a 10 minute break,” she said, jerking her head toward the back porch. “Wanna come sit? I’ve been bugging your daughter for months to get you to talk to me about backcountry landscapes. I’m painting murals for the new rec center downtown.”
Clay’s first instinct was to say no. This was wrong, on paper: she was 4 years younger, she’d taught his kid, everyone in this tight-knit west Boise neighborhood knew everyone’s business, and he’d spent seven years telling anyone who asked that he wasn’t interested in anything more than a quiet beer alone. He felt that sharp, familiar twist of guilt in his gut, like he was betraying his wife by even considering it, but then he looked at her, leaning against the doorframe waiting for his answer, and he nodded.
The back porch was strung with warm yellow fairy lights, and the hum of crickets mixed with the distant pop of fireworks from the county fair a mile down the road. They sat on a wobbly folding bench, and when she leaned in to ask him about the high alpine lakes he used to patrol, her knee brushed his, no awkward pull away, no apology. He told her about the time he’d stumbled on a family of grizzlies by a lake at sunrise, about the way the pine trees smelled after a summer rain, about the way the mountains looked when the first snow hit in October, and she listened like it was the most interesting thing she’d ever heard. He forgot to feel guilty, for a little while. Forgot to worry about what people would say.
She reached over halfway through the story, plucked a crumb of fried cod batter off the front of his flannel shirt, and popped it in her mouth. “You always were messy,” she said, grinning. “I still remember that lemonade incident.” Before he could overthink it, he lifted his hand and brushed a stray strand of chestnut hair off her face, his thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek. She didn’t pull back. She just looked up at him, her eyes bright in the fairy light glow, and he kissed her, slow, no rush, the faint taste of cherry lip gloss and root beer mixing with the bitter aftertaste of beer on his tongue. It wasn’t fireworks, it wasn’t some grand, overwhelming thing. It was soft, and easy, and he hadn’t felt that light in his chest in seven years.
They sat there for another 45 minutes, talking, their hands tangled together under the bench, until someone knocked on the back door to call Clara back to her shift. He walked her to her beat up Subaru when her shift ended an hour later, and she leaned against the driver’s side door, grinning. “I’m free next Saturday,” she said. “We can drive up to the Sawtooths, scout locations for the mural. Bring that old photo album you said you have of the Bob Marshall. I wanna see all of it.” He nodded, and she kissed him again, quick, before she climbed in her car and pulled out of the parking lot.
He got in his own truck, turned the key, and Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” came on the old radio, the same song he and his wife had danced to at their wedding. For the first time in seven years, he didn’t feel a twist of grief when he heard it. He just smiled, rolled the window down, and let the warm July air blow over his face. His phone pinged in the cup holder a second later, a text from her, a photo of a paint splattered palette followed by a winking emoji. He tapped out a reply, his thumb fumbling a little with the keyboard, and pulled out of the parking lot, heading for home, the radio playing loud all the way down the street.
