Cole Hewitt, 58, retired high-voltage lineman with a scar splitting his left bicep from a 2019 tornado repair job, has not willingly spoken to Maren Carter in seven years. Not since the funeral, when she showed up with a peach pie that still had a slightly burnt crust, and he’d snapped that she had no right bringing his wife’s favorite recipe to her own wake. He’s spent the years since holed up in the ranch house he and Linda built outside Atlanta, volunteering for VFW tree trims, drinking Pabst at the same dive every Thursday, and ignoring every well-meaning friend who tries to set him up with “a nice widow who likes gardening.” His biggest flaw, as his 12-year-old granddaughter loves to remind him, is that he’d rather be stubborn and miserable than admit he’s lonely.
He’s only at the Gwinnett County Fair because his granddaughter’s 4-H goat took second place, and she’d begged him to stay for the pie contest awards. He’s halfway through a lukewarm beer, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his faded work shirt, when he rounds the corner of the canvas pie tent and sees her. Maren is 56, silver streaks cutting through the dark hair she’s pulled back in a red bandana, flour dusted on her left forearm, yelling at a teen volunteer who dropped a tray of apple pie slices. She looks up, spots him, and her mouth twists into that familiar half-smirk half-scowl he’d both hated and craved for 20 years of family holidays.
He doesn’t turn to leave, for some reason. He walks up to the counter, leans his hip against the sticky Formica, and nods at the stack of peach pies behind her. “Still burning the edges, I see,” he says, loud enough for her to hear over the whine of the nearby Ferris wheel and the chatter of fairgoers. She snorts, wipes her hands on her frayed denim apron, and leans across the counter, close enough that he can smell vanilla extract and lavender shampoo on her, close enough that he can see the faint laugh lines around her green eyes he’d never let himself notice before. “Still wearing that same ratty work shirt to events that don’t involve climbing power lines, I see,” she shoots back, and he laughs before he can stop himself.
She slides a sample slice of peach pie across the counter, free, she says, before he can argue. Their fingers brush when he takes the paper plate, and he jolts like he touched a live wire. The calluses on her fingers are different from his, soft at the edges from kneading dough every morning, instead of rough from twisting copper wire. He feels a twist of guilt in his gut so sharp he almost drops the plate. This is Linda’s cousin. They’d bickered through every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every family cookout, everyone always joked they hated each other more than cats hate water. The idea of feeling anything even close to desire for her feels like a betrayal, like he’s spitting on the 32 years he had with Linda.
He doesn’t move away, though. He takes a bite of the pie, and it tastes exactly like Linda’s, the right amount of cinnamon, the crust flaky, the peaches so sweet they make his teeth tingle. “I adjusted the recipe,” she says, quiet now, leaning back just enough to give him space but not enough that he can’t still smell her shampoo. “Linda told me to, two months before she died. Said I had to get it right, because when she was gone, you’d be too stubborn to make it yourself.” The words hit him like a punch to the chest. He’d never told anyone he hasn’t made peach pie since Linda died, that he can’t even walk past the peach stand at the farmers market without getting choked up.
“I brought peonies to her grave last month,” she says, picking at a loose thread on her apron, avoiding his eye for the first time. “I know you bring roses every week. She always said roses were too stuffy, but she loved that you brought them anyway.” The guilt twists again, but it’s mixed with something else, something warm, something he hasn’t felt in so long he almost doesn’t recognize it. No one’s paid that much attention to him, to the little things he does, in years. Everyone just sees the grumpy widower who yells at kids who step on his lawn. She sees the guy who still brings his wife roses every week, who still cries at old George Jones songs, who hates sweet tea that’s too sugary.
He’s still processing that when she says she’s closing up the booth in 10 minutes. There’s a spot by the lake at the edge of the fairgrounds, she says, no crowds, no family members who’ll run their mouths the second they see them together. She doesn’t push, doesn’t beg, just says it like it’s an option, like he can say no and she won’t hold it against him. He thinks about the last conversation he had with Linda, when she was in the hospital, high on pain meds, laughing when she told him he better not mope around for the rest of his life, that Maren was the only woman tough enough to put up with his crap. He’d told her she was crazy then. Turns out she was right.
He nods. He leans against the tent pole while she packs up the leftover pies, pays the teen volunteer, tucks the cash box into her canvas tote bag. When she walks over to him, she slips her hand into his, calluses brushing his, and he laces their fingers together without thinking. No one they know is walking past them, but even if they were, he doesn’t care. The fairy lights strung between the oak trees leading to the lake are turning on, the hum of the fair is fading behind them, and she’s humming that old Patsy Cline song Linda used to sing while baking. He can taste peach pie and beer on his tongue when she leans up to kiss him under the first string of lights.
