Hank Rainer, 58, retired power lineman, had spent the three years since his wife Elaine’s death sticking to a rigid, low-stakes routine: tend his 12 beehives at dawn, sell honey at the weekly Athens, Ohio, farmers market, drink one Genesee at The Copper Tap afterward, and be home by 8 to feed his hound dog Mabel and watch old westerns. His biggest flaw, if you asked the few friends who still bothered to nag him, was that he’d convinced himself any hint of joy not tied directly to Elaine’s memory was a betrayal, even when she’d left a handwritten note tucked in his work boot before she died explicitly telling him to stop being a stubborn ass and live a little.
The mid-August heat hung thick enough to sip when he leaned against the Tap’s scuffed oak bar that Saturday, honey crates stacked at his feet, sweat beading at the edge of his faded Ohio State ball cap. The jukebox blared Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” and a group of college kids laughed so loud at a table in the corner he had to tilt his head to hear the bartender ask if he wanted a second beer. That’s when he saw her. Lila Marlow, Elaine’s cousin, who he’d last seen sobbing into a tissue at the funeral, wearing a neon pink “Adopt Don’t Shop” tee, frayed denim cutoffs, and work boots caked in so much mud she left little brown splotches on the linoleum when she walked. She spotted him immediately, grinning so wide the freckles across her nose crinkled, and weaved through the crowd straight toward him.
He tensed up before he could stop himself. The last time he’d spent any real one-on-one time with her she was 16, showing up to his and Elaine’s wedding in a neon tutu and combat boots, begging him to sneak her a sip of his beer. Now she was 42, sun streaks in her chestnut hair, a tiny silver nose ring he’d never noticed before, and when she stopped right next to him, her shoulder brushing his bare bicep, he caught a whiff of coconut shampoo and pine from the dog kennels she’d no doubt been cleaning all morning. “Hank Rainer, I heard you were the guy to talk to if I need something built that won’t fall apart in a thunderstorm,” she yelled over the music, leaning in so close her breath brushed the shell of his ear. He felt a jolt run straight down his spine, and immediately felt sick with guilt, shifting away half an inch and taking a long sip of his beer to buy time.
She laughed, like she knew exactly what was going through his head, and nudged his boot with hers. “Relax, I don’t bite. Unless you ask nicely.” She explained she’d moved back to town three months prior to run the new county animal rescue, and the guy who’d promised to build the new 50-yard fence around the dog play yard had bailed mid-job that morning. She offered to pay him in a peach pie baked from the tree in her backyard, and a tab at the Tap covered for an entire month. He should have said no. He knew damn well spending 8 hours alone in the sun with her was a terrible idea, that the guilt would eat him alive, but when she tilted her head and looked up at him through long lashes, he found himself nodding before he could think better of it.
He showed up to the rescue at 7 a.m. the next Saturday, tool belt slung around his hips, Mabel curled up in the passenger seat of his beat-up F-150. The air smelled like cut grass and wet dirt, and Lila was already there, waiting for him with a thermos of black coffee, wearing the same work boots and a cutoff flannel that showed off a tattoo of a dog on her left wrist. They worked in mostly comfortable silence for four hours, passing tools back and forth, only stopping once to corral a golden retriever puppy that squeezed through a gap in the old fence and ran straight for Hank’s boots. By noon the sun was high enough to burn the back of his neck, so he pulled his work shirt off, tossing it over a fence post, and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. He turned around to find her staring at the thick, silvery scar that ran across his left forearm from a 2018 line fire, her mouth slightly parted.
When she stepped toward him, he didn’t move. She held out a cold bottle of orange Gatorade, and her fingers brushed his when he took it, the contact sending the same jolt through him he’d felt at the bar. “Elaine told me about that scar,” she said softly, so quiet he almost didn’t hear her over the dogs barking in the kennels. “She also told me, right before she died, that if I ever moved back to town, I had to make sure you didn’t spend the rest of your life holed up in that house alone, feeling guilty for being happy.” He froze, his throat tight, because he’d never told a single person how heavy that guilt felt, how he’d left first dates mid-dinner because he couldn’t stop seeing Elaine’s face in his head. She lifted her hand, resting it lightly on the scar on his forearm, her palm warm against his sun-warmed skin, and when she lifted her eyes to his, he didn’t look away.
He kissed her slow, the Gatorade bottle still in his hand, condensation dripping down his wrist, the taste of peach lip balm on her mouth sweeter than any honey he’d ever harvested. They finished the fence two hours later, stopping only once more to kiss against the new cedar posts, Mabel napping at their feet. She made good on the pie promise that night, they ate it straight from the tin sitting on her back porch, watching fireflies blink in the trees at the edge of her yard. He didn’t check his watch once to see if it was 8 p.m.
