Roy Pacheco, 62, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew lead, leaned against the splintered fence lining the small-town Oregon barbecue, sweating through the cuffs of his faded 2017 crew hoodie even though the afternoon sun was mild. He’d avoided every community event for five years, ever since the 2018 Cascadia blaze left his youngest rookie, Javi Mendez, with a permanent limp and an early discharge from the service. The only reason he’d showed up today was his 82-year-old neighbor left a peach pie on his porch at 7 a.m. with a note taped to the tin that said if he didn’t support the volunteer fire department’s fundraiser, she’d stop bringing him baked goods for a year. He held a lukewarm Coors Light in one hand, half-eaten brisket sandwich in the other, and planned to slip out within 20 minutes, no small talk, no eye contact with anyone who might bring up the fire.
That plan fell apart when Elara Mendez walked straight toward him. He’d seen her exactly twice in the last five years, both times at the grocery store, both times he’d ducked down the cereal aisle before she could spot him. She was Javi’s older sister, 47, a traveling physical therapist who’d moved back to town three months prior to care for their dad after his stroke. She wore frayed cutoff denim, a faded Garth Brooks tour tee that hung loose off one shoulder, and scuffed white sneakers, sun-streaks running through dark wavy hair that fell to her mid-back. She stopped less than half a foot from him, close enough that he could smell coconut sunscreen and the cherry seltzer she held in a plastic cup, no awkward socially distanced buffer, no polite smile that said she was only talking to him out of obligation.
Her elbow brushed his forearm when she reached around him to grab a dill pickle from the jar on the fence rail next to his sandwich. She held his gaze the whole time, no flinch, no look away, when she took a bite and crunched it loud. “Heard you’ve been hiding up in that cabin of yours fixing old chainsaws for fun,” she said, grinning, and he felt his face heat up the way it hadn’t since he was 19 and his crew lead caught him sneaking a beer on a fire line. He mumbled something about keeping busy, and she laughed, a low warm sound that cut through the noise of kids yelling on the softball field behind them and the crackle of the hickory grill 20 feet away.
For 10 minutes he tensed up, waiting for the question he’d dreaded for years: how could you let my brother get hurt? But it never came. Instead she told him Javi just had a baby girl named Lila, moved into a house in Bend with his fiancee, was working as a fire marshal and loved it. She said she’d known from the day it happened it wasn’t Roy’s fault, that Javi had ignored Roy’s direct order to stay back from the unmarked ravine, had run in to save a stray dog trapped under a fallen log. She said Javi never blamed him either, that he’d been asking her to track Roy down for years to tell him that.
His throat went tight. He’d spent five years replaying that moment in his head, waking up sweating at 3 a.m. thinking he could have pulled Javi back faster, could have yelled louder, could have done anything to keep him from getting hurt. He’d turned down a promotion, retired early, cut off most of his old crew friends, all because he couldn’t shake the guilt. Now here was Elara, leaning against the fence next to him, her knee brushing his every time she shifted her weight, looking at him like he wasn’t the guy who’d ruined her brother’s career, like she actually wanted to be talking to him.
She teased him about the hoodie, said she’d had the exact same one back when she was in college, when she’d drop off chocolate chip cookies for the crew every time they were stationed near town for fire season. She said she’d had a crush on him back then, that he was always the one who’d walk her to her car after drop off, ask her how her exams were going, that he’d never even noticed. He blinked, surprised, because he did remember that, he’d just thought she was being nice to the whole crew, not paying any special attention to him. He’d been married back then, miserable, stuck in a union that ended two years later, too wrapped up in work and his own mess to see what was right in front of him.
When a group of volunteer firefighters yelled his name, waving him over to join their cornhole game, he almost said yes, then Elara leaned in, her breath warm against his ear, and said she had a whole album of photos of Javi’s baby back at her dad’s house, if he wanted to come see them. No one would notice they left early, she said, her hand brushing his where it rested on the fence, her fingers soft but with a thin scar across the wrist from a patient who’d lashed out during a session a few years prior.
He hesitated for half a second, the old guilt nipping at the back of his mind, telling him he didn’t get to have this, didn’t get to stop punishing himself for a mistake he didn’t even make. But then she smiled, the corner of her mouth quirked up the same way Javi’s did when he was about to talk you into something stupid, and he nodded. He tossed his half-empty beer in the trash, wiped barbecue sauce off his hands on the leg of his jeans, and followed her to her beat up Subaru.
She held the passenger door open for him, then slid into the driver’s seat, and when he reached for the seatbelt, her hand brushed his again, this time lingering for a beat longer than necessary. The radio played old 90s country, windows rolled down, the smell of pine and cut grass blowing through the cab as she pulled out of the parking lot. She reached over, rested her hand on his forearm, calloused from decades of hauling fire hoses and sharpening chainsaws, and didn’t pull away when he turned his hand over to lace his fingers through hers.
