Leo Marquez, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, had spent the last three years perfecting the art of avoiding other people. After his wife Carol died unexpectedly from a stroke mid-grocery run, he’d holed up in his garage building custom birdhouses for the local park, turning down every dinner invitation, every neighborhood block party, every well-meaning set-up from friends who kept saying he “deserved to be happy again.” His biggest flaw, as Carol used to tease him, was that he’d rather suffer in silence than admit he might need something he didn’t plan for. He’d told his neighbor Marnie no less than four times he wasn’t coming to the summer block party, but she’d shown up on his porch at 6 p.m. with a six-pack of his favorite IPA and dragged him out anyway, so there he was, propped against the dented cinder block cooler, sweat beading at his hairline under his faded Cincinnati Reds cap, beer can sweating through the paper napkin wrapped around it.
The air smelled like grilled corn, charcoal, and the faint tang of taco truck hot sauce. A cover band at the end of the block was slurring through a Tom Petty deep cut, kids were screaming as they chased each other with water guns, and every three minutes someone he vaguely recognized would stop to ask how he was doing, the kind of question that only required a grunted “fine” as an answer. He was counting down the minutes until he could sneak back to his empty house and heat up a frozen burrito for dinner when a woman reached past him for a seltzer, her bare arm brushing his, the fabric of her linen sundress soft against his work-calloused forearm. He smelled lavender and tomato leaf, the sharp green scent of plants that had been out in the sun all day, and looked down. She was Elara Voss, 58, the woman who ran the community garden three blocks over, the one he’d dropped off a hand-carved wren house for two months prior, no note, no name, just set it by the gate before he left before anyone could see him.
She had a smudge of dark dirt on her left cheek, a small sunflower tucked behind her ear, and calluses on her fingertips matching his when she reached out to shake his hand, like she knew exactly who he was. “I recognized the scar on your wrist,” she said, nodding at the thin white line across his left hand, leftover from a table saw accident in 2017. “You left that wren house. I’ve been wondering who to thank for it. The chickadees have already laid claim.” He froze for half a second, ready to mumble a generic response and bolt, but she leaned in a little, not too close, just enough that he could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, and laughed, quiet, like she knew he was uncomfortable. “You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to. But the tacos over by the truck are way better than whatever frozen garbage you’re planning on eating tonight. I’ll even buy you one. To pay you back for the birdhouse.”
He should have said no. He’d spent three years saying no to every offer that didn’t involve sanding cedar or filling bird feeders. The voice in the back of his head sounded like Carol, half-teasing, telling him he was being an idiot, that he didn’t have to wear widowhood like a hair shirt forever, but the louder voice was his own, the one that said he didn’t get to have fun anymore, that moving on was some kind of betrayal. He opened his mouth to say no, but a group of kids chasing a golden retriever slammed into Elara from behind, sending her stumbling forward, and he caught her without thinking, his hand settling on the soft curve of her hip, the heat of her skin seeping through the thin dress fabric. They locked eyes for three, four beats, no one saying anything, the noise of the party fading into background static, and she didn’t pull away, just bit her lip a little and smiled, the kind of smile that felt like a secret. “Thanks,” she said, so quiet he almost didn’t hear it over the band.
The awkwardness he’d been expecting never showed up. They stood by the cooler for another hour, him drinking beer, her drinking seltzer, talking about wood finishes and tomato blight and the time Carol convinced him to plant a vegetable garden in their backyard that only ever grew weeds. He didn’t feel like he was betraying anyone when he laughed at her story about the raccoon that kept stealing her strawberries, didn’t feel guilty when his arm brushed hers again when he reached for another beer, didn’t feel stupid when he admitted he’d been hiding from the world for three years. When the sun started to dip below the rooflines, painting the sky pink and orange, she twisted the stem of the sunflower behind her ear between her fingers and asked if he wanted to walk back to the garden with her, to see the wren house, maybe pick some fresh basil for whatever he was making for dinner. He hesitated for half a second, thinking about the empty couch, the frozen burritos, the quiet he’d gotten so used to, then nodded.
The walk to the garden took ten minutes, fireflies blinking in the grass on either side of the sidewalk, the sound of the party fading behind them. The wren house was mounted to the thick oak tree at the entrance to the garden, just like she said, and he could see a tiny chickadee poke its head out of the hole before it flew off. She plucked a fat, sun-warmed heirloom tomato off a nearby vine, wiped it on the hem of her dress, and handed it to him. It was juicy and sweet when he bit into it, juice dribbling down his chin, and she laughed, reaching up to wipe it off with her thumb, her touch soft, calloused, familiar. He walked her to her front porch a block over, the basil tucked into his back pocket, the half-eaten tomato in his hand, and she leaned against the screen door, tilting her head at him. “I have iced tea inside,” she said. “Lemon. The good kind.”
He set his half-eaten tomato on her porch rail, and followed her inside before he could talk himself out of it.
