Elroy Voss, 62, retired commercial beekeeper, leaned against the splintered wood of the block party snack table and stared at the dented can of cheap lager in his hand. He’d only showed up because his next door neighbor had taken a jar of his fall wildflower honey earlier that week without leaving payment, and he’d heard through the grapevine she’d be manning the cotton candy machine all evening. Four years after his wife Linda died, he still avoided any gathering where people would ask him how he was holding up, or worse, try to set him up with their widowed sisters or church group friends. He thought the new city council’s mandate for monthly “community bonding events” post-pandemic was the dumbest thing he’d heard in a decade, right up there with the idiot influencer who’d tried to film a “bee rescue” on his property last summer without asking.
The can was already warm enough to leave condensation rings on the flannel sleeve of his work shirt when someone’s shoulder bumped his elbow hard enough to slosh half an inch of beer down his wrist. He bit back a curse and looked up, ready to tell whatever drunk kid had wandered over to watch where they were going, and froze. The woman in front of him was maybe late 50s, dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, holding a paper plate stacked high with peach cobbler that had nearly slid off when they collided. She smelled like lavender laundry soap and baked stone fruit, the same scent Linda used to wear when she’d make cobbler from the peach tree in their backyard. “Oh hell, I am so sorry,” she said, dabbing at the beer on his wrist with a crumpled paper napkin before he could protest. Her fingers were calloused at the tips, warm, and he didn’t pull away, which surprised him. He hated being touched by strangers, had flinched away from his own niece’s hug at Christmas last year.
She introduced herself as Marnie, the new part-time librarian who’d moved into the blue bungalow three doors down two months prior. He’d seen her walking a scruffy golden retriever past his property a handful of times, but had never stopped to say hello. She apologized again for the beer, offered to buy him a new one, and he found himself saying yes instead of making an excuse to leave. They grabbed two fresh cans and perched on the curb at the edge of the party, far enough away that the noise of the bounce house and the bad cover band playing 90s country didn’t drown out their conversation. She told him she’d seen his beehives through the slats of his back fence last week, asked how he kept varroa mites off without using harsh pesticides, and the question was specific enough that he knew she wasn’t just making small talk. His chest felt tight, half from the old guilt of talking to a woman who wasn’t Linda, half from the quiet thrill of someone asking him about the work he’d loved for 30 years instead of his grief.
Their knees brushed every time someone walked past them on the sidewalk, denim on denim, and after the third time neither of them shifted away. She laughed so hard at the story he told about the time a swarm of 10,000 bees landed on his favorite baseball hat during a hive check that she snort-laughed, and he grinned so wide his cheeks hurt. He hadn’t laughed like that since Linda got sick. When a honey bee drifted down and landed on the shoulder of his flannel, she moved slow, reached out and brushed it off with the side of her hand, her fingers grazing the skin of his collarbone for half a second. The sun was dipping low now, painting the sky pink and orange, and the light caught the gold flecks in her hazel eyes when she leaned in to ask how long he’d been keeping bees. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his neck, and for the first time in four years, he didn’t feel guilty for wanting to stay right where he was.
