Moe Sorrentino, 61, had spent 32 years prying abalone off the rocky Northern California seabed before a bad case of the bends forced his retirement three years prior. He’d kept to himself mostly since his wife Ellen died of lung cancer four years back, convinced letting anyone new into his orbit would be a betrayal of the life they’d built together in their tiny A-frame outside Eureka. He only left the property twice a week: once for groceries, once for the VFW’s Friday night fish fry, where he sat at the same wobbly plastic table in the back, drank Coors Banquet, and ignored the regulars’ half-joking attempts to set him up with every single woman within a 20-mile radius.
The rain was tapping against the cinder block walls of the hall the night she walked in, flannel thrown over a flowy sunflower dress, scuffed rubber rain boots caked with mud, a thick streak of silver cutting through the chestnut hair she kept tucking behind her ear. Her name was Clara, he learned later, the new part-time librarian who’d moved to town three months prior, dragged to the fry by her next-door neighbor. He watched her laugh at a bad joke from the guy running the fry station, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes, and had to look down at his tray of cod and coleslaw like he’d been burned.
She tripped over the leg of his table 10 minutes later, carrying a tray stacked high with fried catfish and a side of hushpuppies. A glob of tartar sauce slipped off her plate, splattering right on the toe of his scuffed work boot, the same one he’d worn on his last dive. She froze, apologizing so fast the words tumbled over each other, and he waved her off before she could offer to pay for a cleaning. “Worse stuff’s been on that boot,” he said, grinning a little. “Abalone guts, sea lion slobber, you name it. Tartar sauce’s an upgrade.”
She laughed, loud and warm, and asked if she could sit across from him to make it up to him. He hesitated for three full seconds, every alarm in his head blaring that this was a bad idea, that he was crossing a line he’d drawn for himself the day Ellen took her last breath. But she was still standing there, tray in hand, rain still glistening on her cheeks, and he found himself nodding, pulling out the plastic chair across from his with a scratch against the linoleum.
She leaned in when he talked about his diving days, her elbow resting two inches from his on the table, their knees brushing once under the table when he shifted to grab his beer. He froze for half a second, expecting her to yank away, but she didn’t, just grinned like she knew exactly what she was doing, holding his gaze longer than anyone had in years. She told him she’d lost her husband to a heart attack two years prior, moved to the coast to get away from the noise of Sacramento, spent her weekends combing the beaches for sea glass. The jukebox played Johnny Cash low in the background, the smell of fried grease and apple cider vinegar hanging thick in the air, and when she passed him an extra packet of tartar sauce, her hand brushed his, soft, smelling like lavender and rain.
He didn’t know what possessed him to ask her back to his place to see his collection of polished abalone shells, the ones he spent three hours a week sanding down until their inner layers glowed pink and green and blue in the light. He held his breath after he said it, waiting for her to say no, waiting for the guilt to swallow him whole for even asking. But she paused, took a sip of her lemonade, then nodded, tucking that strand of hair behind her ear again. “I’d love that,” she said.
The rain was coming down harder when they pulled into his driveway, the porch light glowing yellow against the dark pines lining the property. He led her out to the back porch, where he kept the shells stacked on wooden shelves, and handed her the largest one he’d ever found, the inside iridescent enough to look like it held the entire sunset. She held it up to the porch light, her fingers brushing his when he passed it to her, and this time he didn’t pull away, lacing his fingers through hers. She squeezed back, warm and steady, no hesitation.
He didn’t overthink it when he leaned in, the faint salt of the ocean on both their skin as their lips met for the first time.
