Clay Bennett, 58, spent 30 years patrolling the Bob Marshall Wilderness as a U.S. Forest Service ranger, his hands scarred from chainsaw work and frozen winter trail repairs, his shoulders perpetually a little hunched from carrying 40-pound packs up mountain sides. He moved to Tampa 18 months prior, after his wife of 32 years, Ellen, lost her fight with metastatic breast cancer, honoring a promise he’d made her to leave the brutal Montana winters behind and stop isolating himself in the cabin they’d shared for 25 years. His biggest flaw, the one he wouldn’t admit to even if someone asked, was that he treated any flicker of joy not directly tied to memories of Ellen or his 7-year-old golden retriever, Gus, as a betrayal. He’d skipped family dinners, turned down invitations to fish with neighbors, ignored the kind smiles of widows at the local coffee shop, convinced grief was supposed to be a permanent, heavy weight he carried forever.
He didn’t notice Mia Carter walk up until she was leaning against the same wall, six inches from his side, the hem of her cream linen sundress brushing the top of his khaki shorts when a warm breeze picked up. She held a frozen margarita in a neon plastic cup, salt crusted on the rim, red polish chipped a little on her toes where they peeked out of strappy leather sandals. She glanced over at him, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth, and said she’d wanted to cheer when he called her husband that name at the meeting. Clay tensed immediately, his jaw tightening, ready for a fight, until she laughed, low and warm, and said Richard had been such an insufferable prick since he won the election he refused to eat takeout unless it came from a place with at least one Michelin star. She didn’t step back when he turned to face her fully, just lifted her drink to her lips, the salt sticking to her lower lip for half a second before she licked it off. Their elbows brushed when she lowered the cup, and Clay felt a jolt shoot up his arm, the kind he hadn’t felt since he was 19 and kissed Ellen for the first time behind the ranger station. He was immediately disgusted with himself—this was a married woman, the wife of the guy he hated most in the whole godforsaken state, he was supposed to be grieving, not staring at the way the sun turned the ends of her brown hair gold.
She leaned in closer, her shoulder pressed firm to his, and he smelled jasmine perfume and coconut sunscreen on her skin, warm and bright. She said she’d been watching him walk Gus every morning at 6:30, that she loved how he stopped to give every stray cat in the neighborhood a piece of the turkey jerky he kept in his cargo short pocket. Clay froze, because he’d never thought anyone was paying attention to him, not here, not in this place he still felt like a guest. She held his gaze for three beats too long, her brown eyes flecked with gold, and he could see the faint smudge of lipstick on her cupid’s bow, the tiny laugh line at the corner of her left eye. She told him she’d snuck out to the fair alone, that Richard was gone for the whole weekend at a golf tournament with his lobbyist donors, that he’d called the fair “trashy” and forbidden her from coming.
A group of middle schoolers on skateboards came barreling down the sidewalk then, yelling, and one slammed into Mia’s side hard enough that she lost her balance, margarita sloshing over the edge of the cup onto her wrist. Clay reacted on instinct, reaching out to wrap his hand around her waist to steady her, his palm flat against the soft, warm curve of her hip, the linen of her dress thin enough that he could feel the heat of her skin through it. She rested her hand on his chest to catch herself, her fingers splayed over the worn cotton of his Tom Petty tee, and didn’t pull away. He could feel her heart beating fast under his hand, same as his, and she tilted her head up at him, that half-smile back on her face, and asked if he wanted to walk down to the waterfront with her to watch the fireworks they were shooting off after the fair ended.
Clay hesitated for half a second, the photo of Ellen on his fridge flashing in his head, the last conversation they’d had before she died, when she’d held his calloused hand and told him he didn’t have to spend the rest of his life being lonely for her, that she wanted him to find things that made him laugh, made him feel alive again. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, nodded, took the half-empty margarita cup from her hand and tossed it, along with his empty beer cup, into the nearby trash can.
They started walking down the sidewalk toward the bay, the crowd thinning out the further they got from the fair, their hands brushing every few steps until Clay laced his scarred, rough fingers through hers. She squeezed his hand once, soft, and leaned her shoulder against his arm as they walked. The first firework exploded behind them, painting the purple dusk bright tangerine, and a kid half a block away whooped loud enough that they both turned to look, grinning.
