Clay Bennett leans against the dented side of his 1972 F-150, plastic bowl of three-alarm chili in one hand, cold Pabst in the other, ignoring the group of retired firemen yelling his name to join their cornhole bracket. The air smells like hickory smoke and chili powder, sharp enough to make his eyes water a little, and the firehouse’s beat-up speaker blares old Johnny Cash loud enough to rattle the truck’s side mirror. He’s 58, three years retired from 32 years as a high-voltage lineman, has a scar slicing across his right cheek from a 2018 line fire, and hasn’t gone on a single date since his wife Diane died of breast cancer seven years prior. His biggest flaw, the one Diane used to tease him about constantly, is that he’s stubborn enough to punish himself for no good reason—he’s spent the last seven years convinced being alone is the only respectful way to honor her memory, even when every mutual friend keeps trying to set him up with their widowed sisters or coworkers.
He’s halfway through his second beer when he sees her. Lila. Diane’s baby sister, who he hasn’t seen in 12 years, not since she moved to Portland after she got married. She’s 47 now, her dark brown hair streaked with silver at the temples, wearing worn high-waisted jeans, a faded Dolly Parton tour tee, and scuffed work boots, a half-smoked cigarette tucked behind her ear. She stops a foot away from him, close enough he can smell coconut shampoo and the cinnamon gum she’s always chewed, and grins, the same crinkle at the corner of her eyes that Diane used to have. “Heard you still have that beat-up dirt bike you used to drag me around on when I was 16,” she says, and he chokes on his beer a little, because he’d forgotten about that, forgotten how she broke her wrist riding it when she tried to do a jump without him watching, the scar still thin and white across her left wrist.
She reaches for the extra napkin sticking out of his flannel shirt pocket, and her knuckles brush his stomach through the thin fabric, and he freezes, his grip on his beer so tight his knuckles turn white. For a second he feels sick, guilty, like he’s doing something unforgivable, like Diane is standing right there watching him. But then Lila laughs, wipes a smudge of chili off his chin with the napkin, and the feeling fades just a little, replaced by a warm buzz he hasn’t felt in years. They stand there talking for 45 minutes, ignoring everyone else around them, and she tells him she left her cheating ex-husband six months prior, bought the tiny cottage at the edge of town, the one with the rotting front porch railing. She asks him to fix it for her, and he says no immediately, makes an excuse that he’s swamped restoring a 1968 Camaro for a guy from Memphis, but she rolls her eyes, teases him that he’s still the same coward who refused to ask Diane out for three months because he was scared she’d turn him down.
He shows up at her cottage at 10 a.m. the next Saturday, toolbox in the bed of his truck, even though he told himself he wouldn’t. The air smells like magnolias from the tree in her front yard, and she’s on the porch drinking coffee, wearing cutoff shorts and a flannel tied around her waist, no makeup on. They work side by side for three hours, him prying off rotted wood, her holding the new railing in place, and when a piece of sawdust flies in his eye, she steps close, her chest brushing his arm as she brushes it out with her thumb, her hand lingering on his jaw for a beat longer than necessary. He can hear her breathing, soft and steady, and for a second he forgets to breathe himself.
They take a break for iced tea, sitting on the steps of the porch, watching a pair of cardinals hop across the lawn. She tells him she’s liked him since she was 16, never said anything because Diane was so happy, and she’d never do anything to hurt her sister. He admits he’s been scared to even look at her since she showed up at the cookoff, scared of what the town would say, scared he was betraying Diane’s memory. She reaches over, rests her hand on his, her palm warm and calloused from working on her garden, and says Diane called her two weeks before she died, told her to look after Clay, told her he’d be too stubborn to look after himself.
He sits there for a long minute, processing that, the guilt he’s been carrying for seven years feeling lighter than it ever has. He reaches over, brushes a strand of hair off her face, his thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek, and she leans into the touch, no hesitation. They don’t make a big show of it, no grand declarations, just sit there for another hour, talking about the work they need to do on the porch swing she found at a flea market, the recipe for meatloaf Diane taught her when she was 14. He stays for dinner, and she makes that meatloaf, the same way Diane used to, with ketchup on top and mashed potatoes on the side, and he laughs so hard at a story she tells about her ex-husband slipping on a wet dock and falling into the Columbia River that beer comes out of his nose.
He leaves a little after 9, when the crickets are chirping loud and the sky is dark enough to see every star. She walks him to his truck, leans up, and kisses him soft on the mouth, no rush, no pressure, before she steps back, grinning, and tells him to bring the parts for the porch swing tomorrow. He climbs into his truck, rolls the window down, and pulls out of her driveway, the cool October air blowing through his hair, the faint taste of her cinnamon gum still on his lips. He fumbles for the pack of cinnamon gum he keeps in his center console, pops a piece in his mouth, and turns the radio up loud enough that Johnny Cash’s voice drowns out the quiet voice in his head that’s spent seven years telling him he doesn’t get to be happy anymore.
