Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired commercial salmon fishing captain out of Coos Bay, had only dragged himself to the town’s summer food truck rally because his granddaughter had begged for the famous mango shaved ice, then bailed three minutes after they parked to make out with her boyfriend by the bumper cars. He stood there holding two dripping paper cups, the sticky syrup already running down his wrist, and considered dumping the extra in the nearest trash can before he had to make small talk with any of the neighbors who kept waving at him from picnic tables. He’d spent eight years perfecting the art of hiding out in his cliffside cabin, tinkering with his old boat engine and reading dusty fishing history books, ever since his wife died of ovarian cancer. His core flaw was stubbornness: he’d convinced himself any kind of fun or connection after her was a betrayal, even when his sister left care packages of takeout and concert tickets on his porch every other weekend.
He turned to head back to his truck, and bumped straight into Maeve Carter, the new town librarian who’d moved to the coast six months prior. The extra shaved ice sloshed over the edge, splattering cold mango syrup on the front of her faded linen button-down. She laughed, a low, smoky sound he recognized from the half dozen times he’d shown up to the library three days late with his books, just so he’d have an excuse to hear her tease him about forgetting due dates. She was 54, had auburn hair streaked with silver pulled back in a messy braid, a tiny scar cutting through the left edge of her eyebrow from a college rock climbing accident, and she’d been flirting with him so unsubtly for months that even the teen library volunteers had started snickering when he walked in.
She grabbed a crumpled napkin from the pocket of her cutoff denim shorts, reached out, and dabbed the syrup off his wrist first. Her fingers were cold from holding the frosty craft beer in her other hand, calloused at the tips from the vegetable garden she’d ranted about tending to during his last library visit, when slugs had eaten half her tomato plants. The contact sent a jolt up his arm that he hadn’t felt in close to a decade, and he froze, his throat going dry. He twisted his wedding band around his finger, a habit he’d picked up the week his wife died, and started to stammer out an apology. She waved him off, dabbing at the small syrup stain on her shirt, and held his gaze so long he had to look away first, his ears going pink.
“Was starting to think you only left your cabin to drop off late books and buy bait,” she said, nodding at the shaved ice in his other hand. “Your granddaughter bail on you? I saw her run off with that kid with the blue mohawk ten minutes ago.”
He grunted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The air smelled like grilled carne asada, salt off the ocean, and the coconut topping scattered across the top of the shaved ice. A group of kids screamed as they chased each other past, carrying cotton candy that glowed neon pink under the string lights strung between the food trucks. He’d avoided this exact kind of chaos for years, had told himself it was too loud, too full of people, too much reminder of the trips he used to take to the same rally with his wife. Now, standing there with Maeve, it didn’t feel overwhelming. It felt warm.
She asked if she could take the extra shaved ice off his hands, since she’d been meaning to get one all afternoon and the line was now 20 people deep. He hesitated, glancing down at his wedding band again, the metal worn smooth from eight years of twisting it. He’d told himself he’d never take it off, never even consider going on a date, never let anyone else get close enough to take the place of the woman he’d been married to for 34 years. But Maeve wasn’t pushing, wasn’t giving him that sad, pitying look everyone else did when they found out he was a widower. She was just leaning against the side of the taco truck, sipping her beer, waiting for his answer like it didn’t matter either way, like she’d be fine if he said no and walked away.
He surprised himself when he said they could share it, if she wanted to sit at the empty picnic table by the shore. They walked over, their shoulders brushing once when a group of teens cut between them, and sat down. Their knees knocked under the table, and neither of them moved away. She told him she’d moved to the coast after a messy divorce from a lawyer who’d cheated on her with his paralegal, that she’d fallen in love with the town when she’d visited her aunt as a kid, that the library got so busy in the rainy winter months they had to set up extra folding chairs by the fireplace. He told her about his wife, how she’d loved mango shaved ice more than any other food on the planet, how they’d come to this same rally every year for their entire marriage, how he hadn’t had the courage to come back until today. She nodded, took a bite of the shaved ice, and said she thought his wife would be happy he was finally eating something that wasn’t frozen fish and canned beans.
The sun started to set, painting the sky pink and tangerine over the ocean, and the shaved ice was gone, nothing left but a sticky empty paper cup between them. She leaned over, her face close enough that he could smell the coconut and mango on her breath, and brushed a crumb of coconut topping off his stubble. Her fingers lingered on his jaw for half a second, and he didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. She asked if he wanted to come back to her place, that she had that rare 1990s documentary about Alaska salmon runs he’d asked her to track down at the library two weeks prior.
He paused, then twisted his wedding band off his finger, tucking it into the inner pocket of his worn flannel shirt, right next to the folded photo of his wife he kept there. He stood up, grabbed the empty cup and her empty beer bottle, and carried them over to the trash can. He turned back to her, nodded, and held out his hand to help her stand up from the picnic table.
