Ronan O’Malley, 62, spent 38 years running a gillnetter out of Astoria’s Tongue Point Marina before he sold the boat two years back, and his biggest flaw is that he’s spent the seven years since his wife Ellen passed treating all social invitations like they came with a side of expired crab meat. He only showed up to the fire department’s annual summer barbecue because his 10-year-old granddaughter had begged him to enter the cornhole tournament, said all her friends’ grandpas were competing and she wanted bragging rights. He’s propped against the dented stainless steel beer cooler, half-empty IPA in one hand, faded oilskin work jacket still zipped halfway even though the July sun’s pushing 72, when he catches a whiff of coconut sunscreen and yellowed paper stock before he sees her.
Mara Carter, Ellen’s first cousin, 48, moved back to the coast six months prior to take over the tiny independent bookstore on Commercial Street, and Ronan has gone out of his way to avoid every single run-in she’s tried to orchestrate since she got to town. She reaches past him for a black cherry seltzer from the cooler, her bare forearm brushing the exposed skin of his wrist, and he jolts like he touched a live wire. She pulls back with a slow, knowing grin, dark eyes holding his for three beats too long for polite family interaction, and teases that he’s still wearing that ratty jacket, like he’s scared someone will forget he used to haul salmon for a living. He can’t think of a snappy comeback, just nods, and takes a too-big sip of beer that goes down the wrong pipe, making him cough so hard his eyes water. She pats him on the back, her hand lingering between his shoulder blades longer than necessary, and says the kid running the tournament just paired them up, since her original partner bailed to go chase his toddler around the bounce house.
He tries to protest, says he’s terrible at cornhole, but his granddaughter comes barrelling over, yells that it’s awesome he’s paired with Miss Mara, and he can’t say no. They walk over to their assigned board, and every time he steps back to throw a bean bag, he can feel her standing just close enough that her shoulder brushes his when she leans in to give him terrible, playful advice, like aiming for the seagull circling the cotton candy stand. When he sinks a hole shot halfway through the first game, she cheers so loud half the crowd turns to look, and she wraps her arm around his bicep, squeezing tight, her hip pressed fully to his. He can feel the heat of her through his worn denim jeans, and for half a second he forgets that everyone here knows he’s Ellen’s widower, that Mara’s supposed to be off-limits, that the little flutter in his chest is something he’s spent seven years shoving down as disloyal, wrong, something he should be disgusted by. But she smells so good, and she’s laughing at his dumb joke about the time he caught a 40-pound sturgeon in his net by accident, and he can’t remember the last time someone looked at him like he’s not just a sad old widower who lives alone in a house that smells like cedar and old fishing gear.
They win the whole tournament, take home a crumpled $25 gift card to the diner downtown, and Mara asks him if he wants to walk down to the pier to get away from the noise. He agrees before he can overthink it. The sun’s dipping low over the Columbia River, painting the sky pink and tangerine, and the waves are lapping soft against the wooden pilings, the distant horn of a cargo ship rumbling through the air. She stops at the end of the pier, leans against the weathered railing, and turns to him, says she’s had a crush on him since she was 19 and came out for his wedding to Ellen, that she never acted on it because she loved Ellen too, but she’s been back six months and she couldn’t avoid him any longer. He freezes for a second, all the guilt he’s been carrying bubbling up hot and sharp in his throat, and then he admits he’s been avoiding her because he felt the same, that he thought he was betraying Ellen even thinking about her that way, that he hated himself for it. She reaches over, brushes a strand of wind-tousled gray hair off his forehead, her thumb brushing his cheekbone for half a second, and says Ellen used to tease her back then about how she stared at him all through the reception, that Ellen would want him to be happy.
He stares at her for a long minute, the crash of the waves and the distant chatter of the barbecue fading to background noise, then reaches out, wraps his calloused, net-scarred hand around her soft, ink-stained one, and laces their fingers together. He doesn’t say anything else, just nods his head toward the diner’s neon sign glowing a block over, and they start walking, side by side, their shoulders brushing every few steps, the crumpled gift card tucked safe in his front jeans pocket.
