Manny Ruiz, 62, retired air traffic controller, leans against the hood of his fully restored 1967 Camaro, sweating through the cuffs of his faded navy flannel despite the 90-degree Tucson dusk. He’s got a half-warm Michelob Ultra in one hand, the other curled around the custom pearl shift knob he’s had in the car since his wife Lena bought it for him for their 15th anniversary. He came to the neighborhood 4th of July block party for the bratwurst and to show off the Camaro, but he’s been lingering on the edge of the crowd for an hour, because he heard Lena’s cousin Elara moved back to town last month. He hasn’t spoken to her in 20 years, not since he blamed her for talking Lena into that solo road trip to Santa Fe where she hit a patch of black ice and crashed. Holding grudges is his worst flaw, he knows it, but that anger has been a crutch for so long he doesn’t know how to set it down.
The smell of charcoal and grilled onions hangs thick in the air, kids scream as they chase each other with glow sticks, and a cheap portable speaker blasts 80s rock from the front yard of the house down the block. He’s just about to chug the last of his beer and head home when he sees her walking toward him, silver streaks weaving through her dark wavy hair, a faded linen button-down tied at the waist showing a sliver of sun-tanned skin, work boots caked in red desert dust. She’s a wildlife rehabber now, he heard, spends her days patching up injured desert tortoises and releasing them back into Saguaro National Park. He tenses up, ready to turn and walk away, but she calls his name before he can move, her voice lower and rougher than he remembers, like she’s spent years yelling over wind and desert storms.
She stops a foot away, close enough he can smell jasmine hand lotion mixed with the faint earthy scent of tortoise substrate on her clothes, and holds up her hands like she’s calming a spooked animal. “I know you don’t want to talk to me,” she says, no preamble, “but I’ve been carrying this for 20 years and I need you to hear it. I didn’t talk Lena into that trip. I tried to talk her out of it. Told her the mountain passes were still icy that time of year, that she should wait a month. She said she needed time to think, that you two were fighting about you working 60 hour weeks and never being home. I didn’t tell anyone that, because I didn’t want you to feel worse. I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder. I’m sorry she’s gone.”
Manny’s throat goes tight. He’d forgotten that fight, forgotten he’d been the one who snapped at her and told her to go do whatever she wanted if she was so unhappy. The anger he’s carried for two decades feels suddenly flimsy, like a dried up tumbleweed he could blow away with one breath. He nods, motioning to the empty spot on the Camaro hood next to him, and she sits, their knees brushing when she shifts to get comfortable, the rough fabric of her work pants scraping against his jeans. She points to the shift knob in his hand, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and says she went with Lena to pick it out, that Lena spent 45 minutes digging through a bin of vintage parts at the swap meet to find the perfect one. He never knew that.
The first round of fireworks booms overhead, bright red and cobalt blue lighting up her face, and she flinches a little at the noise, leaning closer to him without thinking, her shoulder pressed firm to his. He doesn’t move away. He can feel the heat of her skin through his flannel, hear the soft little exhale she makes when a gold firework bursts right above their heads, and for a second he feels the old anger melt entirely into something warmer, something he thought he’d never feel again after Lena died. He’s disgusted with himself at first, for feeling this way with the woman he blamed for his wife’s death for 20 years, but that shame fades fast when she turns to look at him, her dark eyes glistening a little from the fireworks light, and says she always liked hanging out with him back then, before the accident, before he shut her out.
She reaches up to brush a fleck of charcoal ash off his shirt collar, her calloused fingers lingering on his jaw for a beat longer than necessary, and he doesn’t pull away. They sit there for another hour, drinking beer, talking about the rehab tortoises she’s currently caring for, about the 6 months he spent restoring the Camaro, about the old diner they used to go to after Lena’s softball games back in the 90s. When the last firework fades and the crowd starts to disperse, she hops off the hood, brushing dust off her pants, and asks if he wants to go get pancakes at that same diner tomorrow morning, 7 a.m., before the post-holiday crowd shows up. He nods, fumbling with his phone to pull up her contact info, and she laughs when he drops his beer can on the grass.
He walks her to her beat up old pickup truck parked at the end of the block, and when she yanks the door open she pauses, leaning in to press a soft, quick kiss to his cheek, the faint stickiness of her cherry lip gloss lingering on his skin long after she pulls away. He stands there in the dark, listening to her truck rumble down the street, until the only noise left is the crickets chirping in the cacti at the edge of the neighborhood. He reaches up to touch the spot on his cheek where her lips were, a small, stupid smile tugging at his mouth that he hasn’t felt in 20 years.
