Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service firefighter, leaned against a splintered pine post at the edge of the annual Nevada County fire department fundraiser beer garden. He’d avoided the event for six straight years, ever since his wife Linda got her ovarian cancer diagnosis, but his old crew chief had called him two weeks prior, gruff as ever, saying they were honoring the 2018 Camp Fire crew and he had no excuse to skip. Clay wore the same faded navy flannel he’d owned since 2017, work boots with soles half worn thin from hiking his property’s fire breaks, and a faint, pale scar sliced across his left knuckle from prying a jammed cabin door open to pull a 10-year-old kid out of the smoke during that 2018 fire. He sipped a hazy IPA, ignored the shouts of old crew buddies waving him over to their picnic table, and watched a group of teens bicker over a lopsided cornhole game.
A crash against his chest pulled his attention away from the game. Lila Marlow, 32, carrying a tray of draft beers for her dad’s old crew, had stepped back fast to avoid a 7-year-old darting after a runaway cornhole bag, and slammed right into him. The tray jolted, a half inch of IPA sloshing over the rim of a pint to splatter across the front of his flannel. She yelped a quiet apology, then looked up, and her face lit up with that same crooked, freckle-faced grin Clay remembered from when she was 12, showing up to crew meetings with homemade cookies for her dad. She didn’t step back right away, their chests barely six inches apart, and Clay could smell citrus sunscreen, the faint sweet tang of peppermint gum on her breath, and the pine-scented air freshener she must have hanging in her truck.
He steadied the tray with his left hand, his scarred knuckle brushing the soft skin of her elbow, and she shivered just enough that he noticed, laughing it off as she said she couldn’t believe he was actually there, that her dad had been complaining for months Clay had holed up in his mountain cabin and turned into a full-time hermit. A hot flush crept up Clay’s neck, embarrassed that even the Marlow family knew how much he’d isolated himself since Linda died. She gestured to the empty spot on the picnic bench beside him, said her shift volunteering for the fundraiser was over, and asked if she could sit for a minute. He nodded, even as a sharp little voice in his head screamed that this was wrong, that she was Jim Marlow’s daughter, that he was old enough to be her dad, that Linda would hate this. She sat close enough that her denim-clad thigh brushed his when she shifted to cross her legs, the rough fabric catching on the frayed cuff of his work pants.
He said yes, no hesitation this time. She grinned, grabbed a crumpled napkin from the stack on the table, scribbled her cell number on it in bright purple ink, and pressed it into his palm. Her fingers were rough with welder’s calluses, she’d mentioned earlier she builds custom motorcycle frames down in San Diego, and she lingered for a beat, her thumb brushing the scar on his knuckle, before she pulled her hand away. She stood, said she had to help her dad get to the truck, winked at him, and walked off across the wood chip covered lawn, her work boots tapping against the hard packed dirt under the chips.
Clay sat there for a minute, twisting the napkin between his fingers, the purple ink smudging a little on his sweaty palm. He tucked it into the inside pocket of his flannel, right next to the folded photo of Linda he kept there, the one of her laughing on their 20th anniversary camping trip. He took a long sip of his beer, the bitter hops sharp on his tongue, and watched Lila help her dad climb into the front of her beat-up Ford pickup, waving at him one last time before she climbed into the driver’s seat. He didn’t feel guilty. He didn’t feel like he was breaking some unspoken, sacred rule. He just felt warm, for the first time in seven years, and he flagged down the beer vendor to order another pint.
