Roland Voss, 62, retired wildland fire crew boss turned part-time mushroom foraging guide, leaned against the splintered wooden rail of the county fair’s craft beer tent, calloused fingers curled around a cold hazy IPA. He’d driven 40 minutes that morning only because his best friend had begged him to enter his prized chanterelle jam in the home preserve contest, and he’d left with a third-place ribbon tucked in the pocket of his faded Carhartt work shirt, already planning to skip the family picnic his sister had set up by the horse barns. He’d avoided all extended family gatherings for 18 years, ever since he’d lost a $500 bet on the 2005 Ducks-USC game to his ex-wife’s cousin Elara, and she’d teased him about it so relentlessly at his own divorce party he’d stormed out and hadn’t spoken to her since. The scar wrapping around his left wrist, leftover from the 2017 Crater Lake fire that took his pinky, throbbed a little at the memory, like it always did when he thought of old grudges.
He turned to toss his empty can in the trash, and his shoulder slammed straight into someone half a foot shorter than him, a small splash of someone else’s hard seltzer soaking the front of her cream linen button-down. He started to apologize, then froze when he saw the faint scar slicing through her left eyebrow, the same one they’d gotten when they crashed a shared ATV on his family’s property when he was 22 and she was 18. It was Elara. Her dark curly hair was streaked with more gray than he’d have guessed, pulled back in a loose braid, and she wore the same silver hoop earrings he remembered her wearing to his wedding. She laughed, warm and not unkind, and brushed a stray curl off her face. “Roland Voss. Still as clumsy as the day you handed me that crumpled $500 bill and swore you’d never speak to me again.”
His first instinct was to snarl a retort and walk away. He’d spent almost two decades framing her as a petty, stuck-up nuisance, the last person he ever wanted to run into. Then he caught the scent of her perfume, cedar and ripe peach, the same one she’d worn since she was a teenager, and his jaw softened. Her hand brushed his when she took the paper napkin he fumbled out of his pocket to hand her, her fingers warm and calloused at the tips, and he remembered she’d always loved pottery, used to make mugs for everyone in the family for Christmas. “I sell my mugs over by the 4-H barn,” she said, nodding toward the far end of the fairgrounds, where the faint smell of fried Oreos mixed with the sharp, sweet scent of cotton candy. “Walk with me? I’ve been meaning to apologize for that divorce party comment for years. I was an ass.”
He hesitated, every stubborn bone in his body screaming to turn the other way. Then she tilted her head, and the sun hit the silver streaks in her hair just right, and he found himself nodding. They walked side by side, their shoulders brushing every few steps, the noise of the Tilt-a-Whirl’s screaming riders and the announcer at the cattle auction mixing in the warm August air. She teased him about still wearing the same beat-up Red Wing work boots he’d had since the late 90s, the soles cracked and caked with mud from his foraging trips. He teased her about still biting her lower lip when she was thinking, the way she did when she was trying to win an argument, and she flushed pink, swatting his arm playfully. The weight of the 18 years of grudge felt lighter with every step, the old anger melting into something softer, sharper, a quiet hum under his skin he hadn’t felt since before his divorce.
When they reached her booth, the last customer had left 10 minutes earlier, the wooden table stacked with hand-thrown mugs glazed in deep greens and burnt oranges, little mushroom designs etched into the sides of half of them. She leaned against the edge of the table, her knee brushing his calf, and reached out to run a finger lightly over the scar on his wrist. “I sent you a card when I heard about the fire,” she said, her voice quieter now, no teasing left in it. “I heard you almost didn’t make it out. You never wrote back.” He swallowed, his throat tight. He’d thrown every piece of mail from extended family away for years back then, too bitter about the divorce, too stubborn to admit he’d overreacted to the bet. “I was an idiot,” he said, and it felt true, the words coming easier than he expected.
She looked up at him, her dark eyes steady, no look away, and he noticed a faint smudge of clay on the edge of her jaw. He reached up without thinking, wiping it off with the pad of his thumb, his fingers brushing her warm cheek. She leaned into the touch, her hand coming up to rest on his forearm, and for a second he thought about the family gossip, how everyone would talk if they found out, how it was supposed to be off-limits, ex-wife’s cousin and all. But that thought felt stupid, small, compared to the way she was looking at him, like she’d been waiting to see him for 18 years too. “I baked a blackberry pie this morning,” she said, grinning a little, the same grin that used to drive him crazy when they were younger. “The recipe you used to beg my mom for every Thanksgiving. You wanna come over and split it with me?”
He nodded, no hesitation this time. He helped her fold up the booth’s canvas cover, lifted the heavy crate of unsold mugs into the bed of her beat-up 2008 Ford Ranger, and climbed into the passenger seat when she patted the cushion next to her. She turned the key in the ignition, and an old Tom Petty song blared from the radio, the same one they’d blared on that ATV ride when they were kids. He rolled the window down, the warm August wind hitting his face, and watched her laugh as she pulled out of the fair parking lot, her hand resting lightly on the center console, close enough that he could reach out and lace his fingers through hers if he wanted. He did.
