Moe Rainer, 62, retired Seattle fireboat captain, has not voluntarily attended a neighborhood event since his wife Lois passed eight years prior. His sister badgered him for three weeks to judge the chowder category at the Ballard Seafood Cookoff, pointing out he’d spent 31 years tasting every greasy, over-salted batch of soup his crew cooked on the dock, so he was more qualified than any food blogger the event committee could dig up. He showed up in his faded navy flannel, scuffed work boots, and the frayed captain’s hat he’d worn his last ten years on the job, fully planning to sample three bowls, scribble scores on a scrap of paper, and slip out before anyone could corner him into small talk.
He was halfway through his fourth bowl, a creamy New England style loaded with bacon and chopped clams, when someone slammed into his left side. Hot chowder dribbled down his sleeve, soaking through the flannel to his skin. He swore under his breath, looked up, and came face to face with Lena Hart, the woman who’d moved into the cottage two doors down from him four months prior.
He’d avoided her on purpose this whole time. She was 58, a former fisheries biologist who’d written the scathing op-ed in the local paper the year prior that shamed the city council into reversing their plan to decommission the last remaining fireboat in the Seattle fleet. He’d agreed with every word of it, had even taped a copy to his fridge, but he’d been too stubborn to introduce himself. Part of him felt like even noticing another woman, even one who fought for the thing he’d dedicated most of his life to, was a betrayal of Lois. The other part was terrified she’d be out of his league, sharp and quick and quick to laugh, while he was just a quiet guy who spent most of his days restoring a 1972 wooden rowboat in his garage.
“Christ, I’m so sorry,” she said, leaning in immediately, dabbing at his sleeve with a crumpled paper napkin. Her shoulder was pressed to his bicep, close enough he could smell lavender hand cream mixed with the fried cod scent wafting from the food booth behind her. Her knuckle brushed his forearm when she wiped a stray drop of chowder off his wrist, and he froze. She held eye contact for a beat longer than casual, a tiny smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You’re the guy who walks the golden retriever every morning at 6 a.m., right? The one who pretends he doesn’t see me waving from my porch.”
He felt his ears go hot. He’d thought he was being subtle, crossing the street when he saw her out watering her roses, pretending to be on a call when she was getting her mail. “I’m not pretending,” he lied, shifting his weight, the empty chowder bowl crinkling in his hand. “Just busy.”
“Busy working on that wooden rowboat in your garage, right?” she said, nodding like she already knew the answer. “I see you hauling parts in from your truck all the time. I’ve been trying to find someone to teach me to row for months. Most guys my age either can’t stop mansplaining or can’t lift an oar without throwing their back out. You seem like you know what you’re doing.”
The request hung between them. His first instinct was to say no, to make up an excuse about the boat not being finished, about having a vet appointment for the dog, about anything that would let him run back to his quiet empty house and stop feeling this jittery, like a teenager asking a girl to prom. But she was biting her lower lip a little, a smudge of tartar sauce on her left cheek, and he couldn’t make himself say the word. “She’s seaworthy enough for the lake next weekend,” he said before he could think better of it. “I can pick you up at 10, if you’re not busy.”
He spent the whole week overthinking it. He cleaned the boat three times, bought new oar grips, even stocked a cooler of iced tea and those little smoked salmon crackers Lois used to love, just in case she got hungry. When he pulled up to her house that Saturday, she was waiting on her porch in jeans and a faded flannel of her own, sunglasses pushed up on top of her head.
The first 20 minutes on the lake were awkward. He showed her how to hold the oars, how to shift her weight to keep the boat steady, their hands brushing every time he adjusted her grip. She laughed when she pulled too hard on one oar and the boat swerved, leaning into his side to steady herself, and he put his arm around her waist without thinking to keep her from tipping over. She didn’t move away. They sat like that for a full minute, the only sound the soft lap of water against the hull and a seagull crying somewhere overhead.
“I avoided you too, at first,” she said quietly, turning to look at him, her sunglasses pushed down so he could see the light brown flecks in her green eyes. “I knew you were Lois’s husband. We met once, at her cousin’s wedding, 15 years ago. I thought you’d never give me the time of day, that you were still too hung up on her to even look at anyone else.”
He’d been so worried he was betraying Lois he hadn’t even considered that, that Lois would’ve wanted him to stop being lonely, to stop hiding in his house every night. “I thought it’d be wrong,” he admitted, his thumb brushing the soft denim of her waistband where his hand was still resting. “Like I was replacing her or something.”
“Lois was my friend,” she said, shifting so she was closer, her shoulder pressed to his chest. “She’d kick your ass if she saw you moping around the house alone this long.”
He laughed, a real loud laugh he hadn’t let out in years, and she smiled up at him, the sun hitting her hair so it looked golden. He reached up, wiped the tartar sauce smudge he’d noticed a week prior off her cheek, and she leaned into his touch.
They rowed back to the dock as the sun was starting to dip below the horizon, neither of them in a rush to get back. He walked her to her door, his hand brushing hers the whole way up the driveway. She paused on the porch, fumbling with her keys, and looked over her shoulder at him. “I made apple pie this morning. You want to come in for a slice?”
He didn’t hesitate this time. He followed her inside, leaving his frayed captain’s hat on her kitchen counter next to the ceramic pie dish, and didn’t leave until long after the moon was high in the sky.
