Elroy Voss, 62, spent 38 years keeping commercial honeybees across 120 acres of west Michigan orchard land before he sold most of his hives last year, holding back 12 colonies tucked behind his lake cottage. His biggest flaw, if you asked the few people who knew him well enough to ask, was that he’d built a wall thick as beeswax around himself after his wife left him for a traveling roofing salesman 12 years prior. He didn’t date, didn’t let neighbors drop off casseroles, didn’t even let the guy who ran the market’s produce stand share a beer after closing. He’d decided connection only came with a sting, sooner or later.
The late August sun hung low over the farmers’ market, painting the white tent tops pink as he wiped sticky honey residue off his last few glass jars with a ragged cotton rag. The crowd had thinned to a handful of stragglers chasing last minute peaches or sourdough loaves, and he could hear the clink of mason jars and the rattle of coolers as other vendors packed up for the night. He was counting his cash in a dented metal box when he heard the yelp.
Mara Hale was two stalls over, selling peach pies baked in her home kitchen, the first season she’d had a market spot. She was carrying a stack of empty pie tins, her canvas sneakers catching on a loose cinder block propping up her tent leg, and she was halfway to the gravel before Elroy was on his feet, one arm wrapped around her waist to steady her, the other catching the top stack of tins before they clattered to the ground. She smelled like baked stone fruit, vanilla extract, and the lavender hand lotion she kept tucked in her apron pocket, and her forearm was warm under his calloused palm, dusted with a fine layer of flour. She held his gaze for three full beats, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners like she was laughing at herself, not mad, before she pulled back slow, like she didn’t particularly want to.
Elroy froze, the old grudge kicking in fast. Mara was the ex-wife of his former best friend, the guy he’d started his beekeeping business with, the guy who’d embezzled $40,000 from their joint account 15 years prior and blamed Elroy for the whole mess. They hadn’t spoken a single word to each other since the fight that ended the friendship, even though Elroy had run into her a handful of times around town over the years. He’d always crossed the street, ducked into a gas station, done anything to avoid the awkwardness, the quiet guilt he’d carried even though he’d done nothing wrong.
Ten minutes later, she was walking toward his stall, holding a paper plate with a thick slice of peach pie, still warm enough to steam in the cool evening air. “Figured you earned this,” she said, setting it down on the edge of his folding table, and she didn’t leave after that. She sat on the edge of the table, her jean-clad knee brushing his work pants every time she shifted, and he didn’t move away. She told him she’d kicked her ex-husband out three months after the embezzlement came out, that she’d known he was lying the whole time, that she’d wanted to apologize to Elroy for years but never had the nerve. He told her about selling most of his hives, about the 12 he kept by the lake, about the way the wild clover honey this year was sweeter than any he’d ever harvested.
He was halfway through the pie, the crust buttery and the peaches so ripe they oozed juice down his chin, when she leaned in, her thumb brushing the corner of his mouth to wipe the sticky juice away. The contact was light, intentional, and Elroy didn’t flinch, didn’t pull back, didn’t tell her to leave him alone like he’d told every other person who’d tried to get close in a decade. For the first time in as long as he could remember, the hum of anxiety he carried in his chest quieted, replaced by the soft buzz of the last few bees lingering around the open jar of wildflower honey on his table, the distant crash of lake waves, the quiet sound of her breathing.
She asked if she could come out to his cottage sometime to see the hives, said she wanted to learn to keep a few of her own to make honey-infused pie crusts, and he said yes before he could overthink it. They agreed to meet at dawn the next Saturday, and she promised to bring a thermos of the dark roast coffee he’d mentioned he liked, said she’d bring an extra pie too, just in case. He helped her load her coolers into the bed of her beat-up Ford pickup, and she touched his elbow for a second before she climbed into the driver’s seat, her fingers warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt.
He stood in the empty market parking lot long after she drove off, holding the leftover half slice of pie she’d left on his table, the paper plate warm through his worn leather work glove. A stray bumblebee circled his wrist once, then drifted off toward the orchard at the edge of the lot, and he didn’t swat it away.
