Rafe Mendez, 57, retired smokejumper turned custom axe restorer, had only dragged himself to the Willamette Valley harvest fair to drop off a hand-forged felling axe for the owner of the peach orchard on the edge of town. He’d skipped every local event for three years, ever since his wife’s cancer took her, hating the pitying stares, the awkward “how are you holding up” small talk, the way every familiar face felt like a reminder of what he’d lost. The scar slicing through his left eyebrow, a souvenir from the 2019 Mt. Jefferson fire, twitched when a group of teen girls laughed as they ran past him, holding dripping cones of blue raspberry snow cone. The air smelled like fried dough, cinnamon, and ripe peaches, and the bluegrass band on the main stage was halfway through a wobbly cover of *Folsom Prison Blues* when the sky opened up.
He ducked under the nearest awning, the one strung with fairy lights above the local library’s baked goods booth, and brushed rain off the sleeves of his faded pine-green Carhartt. A woman next to him yelped when a jar of lemon curd slid off the edge of the folding table, and he grabbed it before it hit the ground, his calloused palm wrapping around the cool glass a split second before hers did. Their fingers brushed, and he felt a jolt run up his arm, sharp and warm, nothing like the numbness he’d carried for years. He set the jar down, and glanced at her name tag pinned to the shoulder of her linen sundress, rain spots darkening the hem around her calves: Lena Marlow. Librarian.
Rafe’s jaw tightened. He recognized that name. She’d written the op-ed in the local paper a month prior, the one that called the downtown smokejumper memorial “a tone-deaf tribute to reckless machismo that ignored the dozens of support staff who died fighting forest fires every year.” He’d ranted about it over beers with his old smokejumper crew for three straight nights, called her an entitled brat who had no clue what it was like to run into a burning forest when everyone else was running out. He crossed his arms, leaned away from her, and stared out at the rain hammering the asphalt, the sound so loud they could barely hear the band anymore.
She cleared her throat. “You’re Rafe, right? The axe restorer? I saw your piece at the spring craft show, the one with the hand-carved black bear on the handle. I’ve been meaning to reach out, my dad collected vintage felling axes before he died.”
Rafe grunted. “Funny, I thought you thought all smokejumper adjacent stuff was just macho posturing.”
She winced, and pushed her cat-eye glasses up her nose. He noticed a tiny pine tree tattoo on the inside of her wrist, faded like it was 10 years old. “The paper edited that op-ed to hell. My dad was a smokejumper. He died in the 2007 Fall Creek fire. I was arguing that the memorial should include the names of the dispatchers, the logistics crews, the hotshot teams that don’t get the same fanfare. I didn’t mean to insult the jumpers. I would never.”
Rafe froze. He’d been on that 2007 fire. He’d carried her dad’s gear out of the tree line after the blowdown hit. He knew the name on the memorial, had tapped it with his knuckle every time he walked past downtown for 16 years. He uncrossed his arms, and leaned in a little, their shoulders brushing now, no space between them. The smell of her lavender perfume mixed with the rain and the leftover sugar from the baked goods, and he forgot what he was going to say for a second.
They talked for 22 minutes, he counted, while the rain slowed from a downpour to a soft drizzle. She told him about growing up going to her dad’s crew barbecues, how she’d learned to sharpen an axe when she was 10, how she’d moved back to town six months prior to take the librarian job, still looking for a way to honor her dad that felt right. He told her about pulling her dad’s crew out that day, about the scar on his eyebrow, about how he’d started restoring axes after he retired because the repetitive work quieted the noise in his head. A group of kids ran past, splashing through puddles, and she stepped closer to him to avoid getting hit, her hip pressing against his, and he didn’t move away.
A strand of her chestnut hair had stuck to her rain-damp forehead, and he reached out before he thought better of it, brushing it back with his thumb, his knuckle grazing her cheek. She didn’t flinch. She leaned into the touch, just a little, and looked up at him, her hazel eyes bright, no pity in them, no awkwardness, just something warm and curious that made his chest feel tight, like he was 22 again, asking his wife out for the first time.
The rain stopped a minute later, and the sun broke through the clouds, painting a faint rainbow over the peach orchards on the edge of town. The bluegrass band struck up a faster tune, and people started pouring out from under awnings, laughing, wiping rain off their arms. Lena tucked the jar of lemon curd into her canvas tote bag, and tilted her head at him, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “The dive bar down the street has fried pickles and cold IPA on tap. You wanna come? I can show you pictures of my dad’s old axe collection. I think one of them you worked on a couple years back.”
Rafe thought about the empty house waiting for him, the stack of axe heads he needed to sand down, the way he’d planned to spend the rest of the day alone, watching old football games. He nodded. She stepped off the curb first, and their hands brushed as they walked down the street, once, twice, before he laced his calloused fingers through hers. She squeezed his hand, tight, and he didn’t let go.
