Eli Kozlowski, 62, retired wildlife biologist, spent 29 years tracking black bear populations across the Olympic Peninsula before his wife’s ovarian cancer diagnosis made him pack up their home and move to her tiny east Tennessee hometown to be close to her family. She died three years later, and he’s hidden away in their creekside cabin ever since, only leaving to restock groceries or help the local extension office track nuisance bear sightings. His biggest flaw? He’s convinced any attempt to move past his grief counts as betrayal, even when the town’s well-meaning widows leave casseroles on his porch or invite him to square dances. He’d only agreed to enter the annual town chili cookoff because his 82-year-old next door neighbor had threatened to stop leaving her famous peach pies on his porch if he didn’t.
The air hums with the smell of cumin, smoked paprika, and charred hamburger, country radio warbling Toby Keith from a beat-up Ford F-150 parked at the edge of the community park. He’s leaning against the card table holding his cast iron pot of bear meat chili, picking at a loose thread on his worn flannel, when she walks up. She’s Marnie Hale, 58, who bought the town’s only independent bookshop six months prior, and he’s seen her around a handful of times, usually hauling boxes of used books into the storefront, ink smudged on her thumbs, a hiking boot lace perpetually untied. She stops a foot away from his table, tilts her head, and sniffs.
“That smells better than the three other chili pots I’ve sampled so far,” she says, leaning in a little closer, her shoulder brushing his bicep when she reaches for a sample cup. The fabric of her own flannel, tied around her waist, is soft and worn at the cuffs, and he catches a whiff of lavender shampoo mixed with the cedar perfume she wears. He hands her a plastic spoon, their fingers brushing for half a second, and he pulls his hand back fast, like he’s been burned. The old guilt twists in his gut, sharp and familiar, even as he notices the thin, pale scar snaking around her left wrist, the exact same shape and placement as the scar he got when a spooked yearling bear swiped at him on a trail in 2011.
“Got it from a run-in with a black bear outside Asheville three years ago,” she says, noticing him staring at the scar, taking a bite of the chili and raising her eyebrows. “Hiked off trail, got too close to a cub, paid the price. Yours looks like it’s from the same thing, by the way.” She nods at his own wrist, half hidden under his flannel sleeve, and he blinks, shocked no one’s noticed that in years, not even his late wife had commented on it after the first week he got home from the hospital. He’s half ready to mumble an excuse and leave, pack up his pot and go hide back at his cabin, when she adds, “I bought your old field notebooks at the town garage sale last month. The ones with the bear track sketches in the margins. They’re fascinating.”
That stops him cold. He’d forgotten he’d donated half his old research boxes to the sale a few months prior, too raw to look at them after his wife died. He’s about to ask what she thought of the messy notes scrawled in the back, when the sky opens up, fat cold raindrops pouring down so fast everyone in the park yelps and scrambles to pack up their tables. He grabs the handle of his cast iron pot, heavy with leftover chili, and his boot slips on a patch of wet clover, sending him stumbling sideways. She grabs his forearm hard to steady him, and they both stumble back under the edge of a pop-up awning, pressed chest to chest for three full seconds, rain drumming so loud on the canvas above them he can barely hear anything else except the fast thud of his own heart. Her hand is still curled around his forearm, warm through his shirt, and when he looks down at her, she’s grinning, the corners of her eyes crinkling, drops of rain clinging to her eyelashes.
“I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to talk to you for three weeks,” she says, loud enough to be heard over the rain, not pulling away. “The whole town says you’re off limits, that widowers have to grieve five full years before anyone’s allowed to even ask you to coffee. I think that’s the dumbest rule I’ve ever heard.”
The guilt twists in his gut again, loud and demanding, telling him he should push her away, go home, keep hiding. But then he thinks about the notebooks, the matching scars, the way she’d laughed at his bad joke earlier about the chili having enough spice to take down a 300-pound boar bear, and for the first time in three years, the guilt feels smaller, lighter, like it’s not going to eat him alive if he lets himself have one good thing. He reaches down into the cooler at his feet, grabs the extra glass jar of his homemade chili spice mix he’d stashed there to give away as a prize, and presses it into her palm, his fingers lingering on hers longer than necessary, the cold glass smooth between their hands.
“I make sourdough pancakes on Saturday mornings,” he says, raising his voice over the rain. “Bring the notebooks. I’ll explain all the terrible sketches and the messy notes in the margins. And I’ll even make extra maple syrup, if you’re nice.”
She laughs, tucking the spice jar into the pocket of her canvas tote bag slung over her shoulder. “9 a.m. Don’t be late. I’ve got a list of 12 questions about those bear tracking notes, and I’m not leaving until you answer all of them.” She gives his arm a quick squeeze, then turns and runs through the rain to her beat-up Subaru, waving over her shoulder once before she climbs in and drives off.
He stands there under the awning for another three minutes, rain soaking through the cuffs of his jeans, the faint pressure of her hand still warm on his forearm, and he doesn’t even flinch when he sees three of the town’s most notorious gossips staring at him from under a nearby awning, whispering to each other.
