Elias Voss is 62, a retired lineman who spent 38 years climbing utility poles across rural northwest Ohio, his hands crisscrossed with thin white scars from spliced wires and cold winter metal. He’d avoided the annual Maplewood Fall Festival for seven straight years after his wife, Carol, passed, but this year the historical society begged him to bring the 1972 pole-mounted transformer he’d spent six months restoring for their display. The air smelled like burnt sugar, fried bologna sandwiches, and hickory smoke from the barbecue pit at the far end of the fairgrounds, the crisp October bite stinging the tips of his ears even through his worn wool cap. He leaned against a splintered wooden fence post, sipping a cheap draft beer, and scanned the crowd before his gaze snagged on the pie booth 20 feet away.
Marnie Cole was behind the counter, wiping flour off her freckled forearms with a checkered dish towel, a streak of silver cutting through the chestnut hair pulled back in a loose braid. She was 58, ex-wife of his old lineman partner Rick, the woman he’d spent 20 years actively not looking at, because back when they were both married it felt like a betrayal to both Carol and Rick to notice how her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes, or how she smelled like jasmine and cinnamon whenever she brought Rick lunch at the co-op shop. They’d only spoken twice in the last five years, once at Rick’s divorce party where he’d hidden in the corner to avoid her, and once at the grocery store where he’d darted down the cereal aisle before she could wave. Today, though, she spotted him before he could slip away, and waved so hard the dish towel slipped out of her hand and landed on a tray of pecan tarts.
He sighed, but he was smiling a little as he walked over, the gravel crunching under his steel-toe boots. She leaned across the counter when he got close, their faces only a foot apart, and the jasmine-cinnamon scent hit him again, warmer than the October sun on his cheeks. “I saw you hauling that transformer in earlier,” she said, pushing a slice of peach pie across the counter toward him, the crust still glistening with sugar. “Always knew you were the only guy in this county who could fix something that old without breaking it worse.” When their fingers brushed as he grabbed the paper plate, he felt a jolt shoot up his arm, sharp and warm, the kind of feeling he’d written off as gone for good after Carol died. He fumbled for his wallet, suddenly flustered, and she laughed, a low, throaty sound that made the tips of his ears burn. “On the house,” she said, waving his cash away. “You did the historical society a solid, you deserve free pie.”
The internal conflict hit him hard, right then, the familiar tug of war between the quiet desire humming under his skin and the guilt that had followed him every day since Carol’s funeral. He’d spent years telling himself any kind of casual connection, even a harmless conversation with a pretty woman, was a slap in the face to the 34 years he’d had with Carol. He’d turned down blind dates, turned down invitations to cookouts, even stopped going to the co-op holiday party because too many people tried to set him up. But Marnie was leaning across the counter, her thumb brushing a smudge of flour off the corner of his mouth before she even seemed to realize she was doing it, and he didn’t pull away. He didn’t even want to. The bluegrass band at the main stage started playing a slow, twangy cover of *Folsom Prison Blues*, and the crowd around the food booths thinned as people headed for the hayride line. “I got a ten minute break,” she said, tilting her head toward the gnarled old oak tree at the edge of the fairgrounds. “Wanna walk?”
He hesitated for half a second, then nodded. They walked side by side, their shoulders brushing every other step, the dry maple leaves crunching under their boots. When they reached the tree, she leaned against the rough bark, looking up at him, her eyes soft. “I always wondered why you avoided me so hard after Carol died,” she said, quiet enough that only he could hear it. “I thought maybe you hated me for divorcing Rick, or something.” He shook his head, telling her the truth for the first time, about the guilt, about the stupid, stubborn idea that he had to be alone forever to honor Carol, about how he’d always thought she was off limits when she was with Rick, even when it was clear Rick was an idiot who didn’t appreciate her. She laughed, soft, and reached up to brush a stray red maple leaf off the shoulder of his flannel shirt, her hand lingering on his chest for a beat, the warmth seeping through the fabric straight to his ribs. “Carol was my friend, you know,” she said, quiet. “She told me once if you ever stopped moping around after she was gone, I should make sure you didn’t spend the rest of your life eating frozen burritos for dinner.”
He blinked, surprised, then laughed, a real, deep laugh he hadn’t felt in years. The knot of guilt he’d carried in his chest for so long loosened, just a little, and for the first time he didn’t feel like he was doing something wrong by being there, talking to her, wanting to be around her. He asked her if she wanted to get dinner at the diner on Main Street after the festival closed, the one that still made chocolate milkshakes with real vanilla ice cream and served their burgers on toasted brioche. She grinned, nodding, and said she’d even bring the leftover peach pie she had stashed under the counter for dessert. They walked back toward the pie booth together, their shoulders bumping again, no awkwardness, no urge to run this time. He tucks the extra paper napkin she’d given him with his pie into the inner pocket of his jacket, already listening for the sound of her laugh over the hum of the crowd.
