Rafe Calderon, 51, has spent half his adult life crisscrossing the Midwest in a dented 2012 Silverado, scouting left-handed pitchers for a single-A farm team out of Cedar Rapids. His worst flaw, per his older sister’s annual holiday rant, is holding grudges longer than he holds onto the scuffed work boots he wears for 10-hour stretches between high school ball fields. For 33 years, the top of that grudge list has been Elara Voss, the girl who bailed on their planned cross-country road trip the night before they were supposed to leave, vanishing without a text or a note, leaving him sitting in a diner parking lot with a cooler of cheap beer and two tickets to a Bruce Springsteen show in Denver. He’d avoided every town event she was involved in for decades, but the fair’s pork tenderloin stand was the only one within 20 miles that made them the way he liked it: breaded thin, fried crispy, slathered in spicy mustard and dill pickles, so he’d bit the bullet and drove in, figuring he could eat fast and leave before he ran into anyone he didn’t want to talk to.
The air smelled like fried dough, diesel from the tilt-a-whirl, and fresh cut grass, the distant twang of a local country cover band carrying over the hum of fairgoers yelling over each other to be heard. He was halfway through his sandwich, leaning against a splintered fence post watching a group of kids chase a runaway goat from the petting zoo, when he heard his name. He looked up, and Elara was standing 10 feet away, holding a stack of neon paper pie auction flyers, her dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, wearing a faded 4-H hoodie and jeans with a grass stain on the left knee. He froze, his first instinct to turn and walk the other way, but she was already walking toward him, a small, tentative smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
She was closer now, close enough that he could smell the lavender perfume she’d worn since they were 17, the same one he’d saved up three weeks of lawn mowing money to buy her for her birthday that year, the one he’d thought she’d stopped wearing decades ago. “I saw your truck in the parking lot,” she said, her voice a little lower than he remembered, softer around the edges. “Figured you’d be here for the tenderloin. You always were a sucker for them.” He grunted, wiping mustard off his chin with the back of his hand, suddenly hyperaware of the hole in the elbow of his worn flannel shirt, the smudge of tire dirt on his cheek from changing a flat on the side of I-80 that morning. She reached out to take his crumpled empty paper plate from him, her wrist brushing the thin pale scar on his forearm, the one he’d gotten crashing the dirt bike they’d rebuilt together that summer after senior year. She paused, her thumb brushing the raised edge of the scar for half a second, before she pulled her hand back like she’d been burned, her cheeks flushing bright pink.
He didn’t say anything for a minute, the old sharp anger bubbling up in his chest warring with the stupid, sharp ache of desire he hadn’t felt for anyone in years, not since his messy divorce 8 years prior. Everyone in their small Iowa town knew her husband had been in a nursing home with early onset Alzheimer’s for four years, that he didn’t recognize her anymore, that she slept alone in the old farmhouse they’d bought right after they got married. It was the quiet, unspoken town taboo, the thing no one mentioned, the line no one dared cross. He found himself asking how much the lopsided peach pie on the top of the auction display was going for, the one he could tell she’d made, because the crust was crimped the same messy way she’d always done it, the edges burnt just a little around the corners.
He bid $120 for it, twice the highest anyone else had bid all night, and the small crowd around the auction table cheered when the auctioneer banged his gavel. She walked him out to his truck when the auction ended, the sky streaked tangerine and soft pink over the endless surrounding cornfields, the sound of the fair’s rides and music fading behind them. He leaned against the tailgate, popping open the pie box, and she sat down next to him, their shoulders pressed tight together, the heat of her arm seeping through the thin fabric of his flannel. She told him she hadn’t left him that night because she didn’t want to go, she’d left because her mom had gotten the terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis that afternoon, and she’d been too proud to ask him to stay, too scared he’d give up his first scout offer to take care of her and her 12-year-old little sister. He didn’t say anything for a long time, passing her a crumpled napkin when she wiped a stray tear off her cheek, the heavy grudge he’d carried for 33 years melting like the warm peach filling in the pie.
They split a piece of the pie, the sweet, sharp cinnamon mixing with the taste of sun-ripened peach, and when she wiped a crumb off his chin her hand lingered on his jaw for a beat, her thumb brushing the edge of his graying stubble. He didn’t pull away. He reached for her other hand, lacing his fingers through hers, the calluses on her palm from decades of gardening matching the calluses on his from holding a radar gun for 22 straight seasons.
