Ronan O’Malley, 62, spent 38 years hauling king salmon out of Oregon’s frigid coastal waters before a blown rotator cuff forced him to sell his 42-foot boat and stick to running his tiny, cluttered bait and tackle shop off the town pier. His biggest flaw, one he’d never admit out loud to anyone, is that he’d spent the eight years since his wife Elaine died walling himself off from anyone who might make him feel like he didn’t have to grieve 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He’d skipped every town community event in that stretch, until his 74-year-old next-door neighbor Darlene showed up on his porch at 4 PM with a tupperware of mustard potato salad and a very specific threat to hide his entire collection of vintage wooden fishing lures if he didn’t show up to the annual summer fish fry.
He’d hidden by the beer tent for 45 minutes, half-empty cold IPA in one hand, the other stuffed deep in the pocket of his grease-stained navy flannel, when someone bumped hard into his side. Iced tea sloshed over the rim of the plastic cup in their hand, splattering cold, sweet, lemon-scented liquid across the front of his shirt. He looked down, ready to grumble, and froze mid-sentence.
Mara Carter was 58, Elaine’s second cousin, the woman who’d driven up from Sacramento for every family holiday for 12 straight years, the one who’d sat next to him at Elaine’s funeral and held his calloused hand for 20 full minutes without saying a single unnecessary word. She’d moved back to town three months prior to take over her mom’s downtown used bookstore, and he’d deliberately crossed the street to avoid running into her every time he’d passed the storefront. He’d told himself it was out of respect for Elaine. The part he wouldn’t admit, even when he was alone in his trailer late at night, was that he’d felt a tiny, electric spark every time she laughed at his terrible fishing jokes back when Elaine was alive, a little jolt he’d immediately squashed down with hot, sharp guilt.
She was wearing frayed cut-off denim shorts and a faded 1995 Tom Petty tour tee, sun streaks running through her wavy auburn hair, a smudge of tangy barbecue sauce on the curve of her left cheek. “Oh shit, Ronan, I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching out to dab at the wet spot on his shirt with a crumpled paper napkin. Her knuckles brushed the coarse hair on his chest through the thin flannel, and he caught a whiff of coconut sunscreen and spearmint gum, sharp and warm against the constant salty brine of the ocean air hanging over the park. Her eyes locked onto his, deep hazel flecked with gold, and neither of them looked away for three full, heavy beats.
He felt the familiar twist of guilt in his gut first, hot and stabbing, like he was betraying Elaine just by standing this close to her cousin, just by noticing how the sun hit the smattering of freckles across her nose. Then the desire hit, softer, slower, the kind he hadn’t felt in more than a decade, the kind that made his palms sweat a little and his throat go dry like he’d been out on the water for 12 hours without a drink.
“Nah, it’s fine,” he said, shifting his weight, his scuffed work boot scuffing the loose gravel underfoot. “Worse stuff’s gotten on this shirt. Fish guts, motor oil, Darlene’s famous neon green jello salad that glows in the dark if you hold a flashlight up to it.”
She laughed, loud and unselfconscious, and the sound made the edge of his mouth tug up before he could stop it. They talked for an hour right there by the beer tent, her leaning against the same dented metal tent pole as him, their shoulders barely an inch apart, brushing every time a gust of wind came off the ocean carrying the faint smell of fried cod. She told him she’d stopped by his tackle shop three times in the past month, left a vintage 1960s wooden salmon lure on his counter, the exact one he’d ranted about losing on a fishing trip back in 2012, the one he’d been hunting for ever since. He’d thought it was a random regular who’d left it, had been carrying it in his jeans pocket every day since he found it.
Most of the crowd cleared out as the sun started to dip low, painting the sky streaky pink and tangerine over the Pacific, seagulls crying as they circled the pier looking for discarded french fries. Mara nodded toward the water, her bare arm brushing his as she lifted her hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Wanna walk? I haven’t been out to the end of the pier since I was 12, when I fell off the side and Elaine had to fish me out.”
He nodded, no hesitation, and they walked side by side down the weathered wooden planks, the boards creaking under their feet, the sound of waves crashing against the pilings loud enough to drown out the distant country music playing from the fry’s speaker system. Cold ocean spray misted his ankles as they walked, and he heard the low, mournful blare of a fishing boat horn miles out on the water. When they got to the end, she leaned against the splintered wooden rail, her shoulder pressing fully against his, warm through the damp flannel. He didn’t move away.
“I never said anything before,” she said, quiet, her eyes fixed on the horizon, “because I loved Elaine too, and I would never have done anything to hurt her, or you. But I’ve thought about you a lot, these past eight years. Wondered if you were ever gonna stop punishing yourself for being alive when she wasn’t.”
The guilt hit him again, but this time it didn’t burn. It faded, slow, like fog burning off the water in the early morning. He’d spent so long thinking being happy again would be the ultimate betrayal, he’d forgotten that Elaine had spent her last few weeks alive nagging him to go fishing with his buddies, to stop moping, to live his life once she was gone.
He turned to her, reached up, brushed the leftover barbecue sauce off her cheek with the pad of his thumb, his calloused finger catching a little on her soft skin. She turned her hand over where it rested on the rail, laced her fingers through his, her palms soft from years of turning old book pages, fitting perfectly against the rough ridges of his decades-old fishing calluses.
They stood there in silence as the last sliver of the sun dipped below the horizon, the first faint stars popping out in the dark indigo sky, the ocean breeze tangling their graying hair together. He squeezed her hand once, slow and firm, and didn’t let go.
