Elio Marquez, 53, has built custom fishing rods out of his coastal Oregon garage for 14 years, and he’s avoided the annual town crab feed for two straight. His late wife Maggie used to drag him every year, make him wear a clean flannel instead of his grease-stained Carhartt, laugh when he snuck extra drawn butter on his plate. She’d been gone three years, and the only people he spoke to regularly were grizzled commercial fishermen dropping off deposits for rods they’d use to haul in halibut and king salmon come spring. His biggest flaw, as his only remaining friend Javi had pointed out over coffee the week prior, was that he’d convinced himself being alone was a penance he owed Maggie, instead of just a choice he was too lazy to walk away from. Javi had practically hauled him to the community center that night, so he was standing in the back, plate piled high with cracked Dungeness, red Solo cup half full of cheap lager, trying to edge toward the exit before the group of retired trollers cornered him to beg for discounted rods.
He turned too fast, shoulder slamming into someone coming around the folding table stacked with paper napkins and crab crackers. Half his beer sloshed onto the front of a red plaid flannel, and he started sputtering apologies, grabbing a handful of napkins to pat it dry before he looked up. It was Lila. Maggie’s younger cousin, the one who’d driven up from Sacramento for the funeral, hugged him so tight his ribs ached, slipped a crumpled note with her phone number into his jacket pocket and told him to call if he ever needed anything, even just someone to help haul scrap wood for his rod blanks. He’d never called. He’d thrown the note away two days later, mad at himself for even wondering what it would be like to talk to someone who didn’t only ask about rod action and line weight.
She laughed, swatting his hand away from her shirt. “Relax, I already had three globs of butter on here before you even showed up. Figured I’d ruin one flannel tonight, might as well be the one I wear to haul salmon nets.” She’d moved back to town three months prior, she said, to run the local salmon restoration project for the state wildlife service. She’d stopped by his shop four times, she added, but the garage door was always closed, his beat-up Ford F150 gone or parked behind a gate. She’d wanted to ask him to build her a custom rod for electrofishing surveys, light enough to hold for eight hours straight, tough enough to stand up to snagging on river rocks.
They stood so close he could smell pine soap on her skin, salt from the ocean in her wind-tousled blonde hair, the faint tang of garlic butter on her breath. When she held her hand out for his phone to plug in her number, her calloused thumb brushed the back of his hand, and he flinched like he’d been burned. He hadn’t been touched by anyone who wasn’t slapping his back to congratulate him on a good rod build in three years. Guilt twisted in his chest, sharp and hot, and he almost pulled his hand away. This was Maggie’s cousin. He had no right to notice the way the corner of her mouth quirked up when she teased him about hiding from his customers, no right to like the sound of her laugh, low and rough from years of yelling over river rapids. He wanted to walk out, go home to his empty house, sand a rod blank until his hands ached and forget he’d even seen her.
The steel guitar of the local cover band kicked into a slow, twangy version of a song Maggie had loved to dance to in the kitchen while she made tacos. Lila tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, nodded toward the makeshift dance floor where a handful of middle-aged couples were swaying. “You still dance as bad as you did at Maggie’s wedding?” she asked, grinning. Before he could say he hadn’t danced at all since that day, she’d grabbed his hand, laced her fingers through his, and pulled him onto the sticky linoleum. His hands felt awkward on her waist, like he’d forgotten how to hold anyone, and he kept his distance at first, enough space between them to fit a cooler of beer. She leaned in, her mouth close enough to his ear that he could feel her breath on his neck. “I know it feels wrong,” she said, quiet enough no one else could hear. “I’ve felt guilty about stopping by your shop every week for three months, like I’m betraying her too. But she’d yell at both of us for being this stupid.”
Something in his chest loosened, right then. He didn’t have to punish himself for being alive, didn’t have to stay stuck in the same quiet, empty routine forever. He pulled her a little closer, so their shoulders were pressed together, and for the first time all night, he didn’t check his watch to see how soon he could leave.
They danced through two more songs, until the band switched to a fast honky tonk track and the floor filled with rowdy teens. She squeezed his hand, said she had to get back to her cabin to let her rescue hound out, and asked if he wanted to come with. She had a bottle of 12-year-old bourbon she’d been saving for a good excuse, she said, and a stack of catalogs for rod blanks she wanted him to look through. He hesitated for half a second, glancing at the exit, then grabbed his Carhartt off the back of the folding chair he’d left it on. The cold coastal wind hit his face when they stepped outside, sharp with rain and the briny smell of the bay a half mile away, and she tossed him the keys to her rusted Subaru so he could drive. He caught them one-handed, the cool metal pressing into his palm, and followed her to the parking lot without looking back.
