Rafe Mendez, 62, retired wildland firefighter and owner of a one-man tree-trimming service in Paulden, Arizona, has spent eight years walling himself off from anything that feels like joy after his wife Lila died of ovarian cancer. His greatest flaw is his stubborn refusal to let anyone new get close, convinced any flicker of interest in another person would be a slap to Lila’s memory. He only shows up to the local volunteer fire department’s annual chili cookoff on a crisp October Saturday to drop off Lila’s famous green hatch chili recipe, the one he’s spent three years perfecting after burning half a dozen pots trying to get the spice level right.
He’s hauling the dented crockpot toward the contest table, work boots caked in pine sap from a ponderosa trim that morning, when he rounds the corner of the drink tent and slams straight into someone holding a plastic cup of iced sweet tea. The liquid sloshes over the rim, soaking a dark splotch into the sleeve of his faded 2008 fire crew flannel. He’s already grumbling an apology before he looks up, and his throat goes tight.
It’s Elara Voss, 58, ex-wife of his old crew chief Jake, who died of a heart attack three years prior. Back when Rafe was 27, he’d secretly thought she was the prettiest thing in Yavapai County, too shy and too loyal to Jake to ever say more than two words to her that weren’t about fire lines or ATV maintenance. She’s got more silver streaked through her dark wavy hair now, the same crinkles around her hazel eyes when she smiles, little silver fire helmet studs glinting in her ears.
“Whoa, easy there, tree slayer,” she teases, dabbing at the wet spot on his sleeve with a crumpled paper napkin before he can protest. She’s standing so close he can smell lavender hand lotion, the faint smoky tang of cedar from the firewood stack he’d spotted on her porch two weeks prior when he trimmed a tree for her neighbor, and the vanilla buttercream from the cupcake she’d been eating. He steps back fast, like he’s been burned, and mumbles another apology, already turning toward the contest table so he can bolt for his truck.
She calls after him, asks if he’s not staying to taste the competition. He pauses, half tempted to lie and say he has an emergency call, but when he turns back she’s leaning against the drink table, hip jutted out, one eyebrow raised, and he can’t say no. He grabs a cold Corona from the cooler, follows her to a picnic table tucked far away from the blaring Toby Keith track and the yelling crowds of kids chasing each other with water guns.
They talk for an hour first about the old crew, the 2017 blaze that took three of their guys, the stupid stunts they pulled back when they thought they were invincible. Then they talk about Lila, about Jake, and Rafe’s chest feels tight, the familiar guilt creeping in when he catches himself staring at her mouth when she laughs, when their knees brush under the splintered wooden table and he doesn’t shift away. He’d spent eight years telling himself he didn’t deserve to feel this light, that any interest in someone else meant he was forgetting Lila, that getting involved with Jake’s ex was crossing a line no good man would cross.
Elara must see the conflict on his face, because she reaches across the table, taps the back of his calloused, scarred hand with her soft, ink-stained one (she stamps county permits all day, she explains) and says she gets it. She’d spent three years turning down every date offer from guys at the county clerk’s office where she works, convinced she was being disloyal to Jake, until her 28-year-old daughter told her Jake would kick her ass if she spent the rest of her life alone just to make him happy. She admits she’d asked the fire chief if Rafe would be at the cookoff, that she’d been wanting to talk to him for months, too nervous to show up at his place unannounced.
Rafe stares at her for a long minute, the sun dipping low over the red rock buttes, painting the sky streaky pink and tangerine, and all the walls he’d built over eight years feel like they’re melting. He’d spent so long thinking grief was a competition, that the longer he suffered alone the better husband he was, but sitting there next to her, he realizes Lila would have yelled at him for being so stupid, for wasting all this time.
He walks her to her beat-up Ford F150 when the cookoff starts winding down, their shoulders brushing every few steps, and when she stops by the driver’s side door, he hesitates for three full seconds before he lifts his hand, brushes a stray strand of silver hair off her face, his thumb grazing her warm cheek. She leans into the touch, her eyes fluttering closed for half a second, and Rafe feels a jolt go through him he hasn’t felt since he was a kid asking Lila to prom.
He asks her if she wants to come back to his place, says he’s got a baby burro he rescued last month that’s still recovering from a coyote bite, that Lila’s chocolate chip cookie recipe is still taped to his fridge and he’s got a half bag of Ghirardelli chips in the pantry. She grins, that same crinkly smile he’d stared at from across crew barbecues 30 years prior, and says yes.
He opens the passenger door of his own beat-up Chevy for her, the faint scent of her lavender lotion mixing with the pine sap on his jacket and the crisp desert air, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel like he’s leaving someone behind.
