Elias Voss, 62, spent three decades teaching high school woodshop before he retired last year, his hands still crisscrossed with faint scars from table saw mishaps and splintered black walnut. His biggest flaw, the one he’d never admit out loud, was that he’d shut himself off entirely from any sort of romantic connection after his wife left him 15 years prior for a 28-year-old hot yoga instructor with a van and a podcast about plant-based colon cleanses. He’d convinced himself every woman his age was either looking for someone to mow their lawn and fix their leaky faucets for free, or drain their retirement account on cruises and overpriced skincare. He’d avoided the town’s annual fall harvest festival for 12 years running, only showing up this year to drop off the hand-carved birdhouses he’d made for the silent auction.
The air smelled like spiced cider and fried dough, the crunch of burnt orange maple leaves under his scuffed work boots loud over the chatter of families and the twang of the bluegrass band playing on the gazebo. He had a chipped ceramic mug of black coffee in his hand, half gone, when a toddler darted out from between two booths and slammed into his side, spilling most of the remaining coffee down the front of his faded plaid flannel. He yelped, more surprised than hurt, and looked up to see Mara Hale waving him over from the honey stand 10 feet away.
Mara was 58, the widow of his old coworker Greg, who’d taught biology at the high school for 20 years before he died of pancreatic cancer three years prior. Elias had always thought she was off limits, even after Greg passed, like making a move would be some sort of betrayal of the years they’d spent coaching the school’s fishing club together. He hesitated for half a second, then walked over, wiping at the coffee stain on his shirt with the back of his hand.
She didn’t mention the 10 years of silent treatment he’d given her around town, just grabbed a stack of paper napkins from under the counter and leaned over to dab at the wet spot on his chest, her fingers brushing his forearm through the thin flannel. He felt the rough, raised callus on the side of her thumb, the kind you get from lifting heavy wooden hive boxes day after day, and the warmth of her skin sent a jolt up his arm he hadn’t felt in close to two decades. She smelled like beeswax and dried lavender, the same scent Greg used to complain clung to every piece of clothing he owned.
“Sorry about the kid,” she said, grinning, her eyes crinkling at the corners, streaks of silver in her dark braid catching the afternoon sun. “He’s my neighbor’s boy, thinks every jar of honey is his personal snack. Let me make it up to you. Sample of this year’s wildflower, it’s got a hint of blackberry from the hives I keep out on the old orchard edge.”
He nodded, and she held out a small wooden popsicle stick dipped in thick golden honey. He took it, the taste bright and sweet, and he realized it was the same orchard he used to take his woodshop classes to every fall to harvest apple wood for carving. They talked for 45 minutes straight, the noise of the festival fading into background static as they swapped stories about Greg’s terrible campfire cooking, the time a kid brought a pet duck to woodshop class, the way the orchard’s apple trees had grown gnarled and twisted in the last 10 years. A group of rowdy teens pushed past the stand, and her knee bumped his where he leaned against the counter, the contact light but deliberate, and she didn’t pull away, just held his eye contact a beat longer than was strictly polite.
Elias’s chest felt tight, half panic half something softer he hadn’t felt in years. Part of him screamed that this was a mistake, that he was being an idiot, that she was only being nice to get him to build new hive boxes for free, that he’d end up heartbroken again. The other part couldn’t stop staring at the small bee tattoo on the inside of her wrist, the way she twisted the silver bee ring on her index finger when she was nervous, a quirk Greg had joked about a hundred times.
The sun dipped below the hills as the festival started winding down, the sky turning soft pink and tangerine, the bluegrass band packing up their instruments. She wiped her hands on her denim jeans, the bee patch on her jacket sleeve frayed at the edges, and tilted her head at him. “I got a batch of mead I just finished fermenting last week out at the farm. Wanna come try it? I can show you the hives, if you want. They’re real calm this time of year.”
He almost said no. Almost made up an excuse about needing to get home to feed his cranky old tabby cat, almost turned and walked back to his pickup truck like he had a hundred times before. But then she smiled, the same smile he’d seen a hundred times at fishing club cookouts, and he nodded.
He followed her to her beat up Ford pickup, and when she held open the passenger door for him, his hand brushed hers on the metal frame, and she laced their fingers together for half a second before letting go, the callus on her thumb scraping lightly across his knuckles. She climbed into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” blared from the radio, the same CD Greg used to play on every fishing trip they took.
