Ronen Voss leans against the chipped cinder block wall of the Fairlawn VFW, half-empty Yuengling sweating in his calloused right hand, the left still dusted with sawdust from sanding down a 1978 McCulloch chainsaw he’d pulled from a barn sale that morning. He’s 62, retired three years from 38 years as Akron’s municipal arborist, and he’s actively avoiding the guy running the 50/50 raffle, who cornered him last week begging for free advice on trimming the 80-foot oak hanging over his garage. Ronen’s flaw, one he’s never bothered to fix, is holding grudges so long they fossilize: he still hasn’t spoken to his late wife’s cousin Dale, who dumped a bucket of spiked apple cider over his head at his 40th wedding anniversary party 18 years prior, and he still shuts down any stranger who tries to make small talk long enough to ask a tree question.
She walks over before he can pretend he didn’t see her, wiping beer off her shirt with a crumpled napkin. She pulls out the bench across from him at the picnic table, then slides into the seat next to him instead, her knee brushing his denim-clad thigh hard enough that he can feel the heat of her leg through the fabric. She smells like pine and cinnamon gum, no perfume, and when she holds out a hand to shake, her palm is calloused too, rough from what he later learns is her work refinishing vintage furniture. She says she knows her dad was an ass, that he apologized to her last month before he moved to Florida to retire on a boat, that he’d spent years feeling stupid for the cider prank and wanted her to pass the apology along.
Ronen tenses up at first, jaw tight, ready to brush her off. He’s spent 18 years writing off Dale’s entire side of the family, and he’s spent two years since his wife Susan passed shutting down any attention from women, convinced even looking at another person was some kind of betrayal. But Lila’s laughing at his offhand joke about the city’s new arborist, who tried to cut down a 100-year-old sugar maple last month because he thought it was a weed tree, and when she reaches across him to grab a french fry off his styrofoam plate her forearm brushes his chest, and he feels a jolt he hasn’t felt since Susan snuck into his work truck to make out with him on his lunch break back in 2007. He’s torn, half disgusted with himself for even noticing how her dimple shows when she smiles, half buzzing with a kind of excitement he thought died with Susan.
The band wraps up their set as the sun drops below the tree line, the air turning sharp enough that Ronen can see his breath when he exhales. Lila leans into his side without asking, her shoulder pressed to his bicep, and says she’s been asking around about him for three months, ever since she moved back to town after her divorce, bought a little house on the west side with a giant oak leaning so far over the roof she’s scared it’ll collapse through the bedroom when the first winter storm hits. She tilts her head up to look at him, eyes dark, no shyness, no looking away, and he can feel her hair brush the edge of his jaw when she shifts closer. He admits he’s been an idiot holding the grudge for so long, that he’s been scared to talk to anyone new because he thought he was supposed to stay lonely forever, that he thought anyone who talked to him only wanted free tree work. She laughs, soft, and says she already knows how to trim small trees, she just wanted an excuse to talk to the grumpy old arborist everyone in town says is the only person who still does the job right.
He offers to come look at the oak at 8 a.m. the next morning, says he’ll bring the good hazelnut coffee from the corner shop by his house. She says she’ll make blueberry pancakes, the kind with extra butter, and asks if he wants a ride to his truck so he doesn’t have to walk through the cold. He stands first, holds out a hand to help her up, and when she takes it her fingers lace through his for three full seconds before she lets go, her thumb brushing the scar on his knuckle he got when a chainsaw kicked back on him in 2012. She touches his elbow when he opens the passenger door of his beat-up 2006 F-150 for her, says she’s glad he didn’t pretend he didn’t see her tonight. He turns the key, the old diesel rumbles to life, and for the first time in two years, he doesn’t dread the drive home.
