Moe Sorrentino, 59, retired high-voltage lineworker from outside Pittsburgh, leaned against a split-rail fence at the county fire department oyster roast, plastic cup of Yuengling sweating in his grip. He’d moved to coastal North Carolina two years prior, three months after his wife of 34 years lost her six-year fight with breast cancer, and he’d spent most of that time holed up in his cinder block cottage fixing up his 1998 F-150 or volunteering at the local food bank, avoiding any interaction that felt like it might lead to something more than small talk. The flaw he’d carried like a lead weight in his chest since the funeral was the quiet, unshakable conviction that even looking at another woman was a betrayal, that anyone his age trying to date was just making a fool of themselves.
The air smelled like smoked sausage, brine, and pine from the fire pit 20 feet away, and the bluegrass band on the flatbed stage was sawing through a cover of Rocky Top so loud his molars vibrated a little. His next door neighbor Carol, who he’d been hauling groceries for since she tore her meniscus last month, limped over with a woman at her side, dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a braid, work boots caked in red mud, a faded beeswax company hoodie slung over her shoulders. Carol introduced her as her niece Lila, 54, who ran a small beekeeping operation outside Asheville, in town for three weeks to help Carol around the house while she recovered.
Moe mumbled a hello, already mentally mapping an escape route to his truck, but then Lila laughed at his throwaway joke about oysters tasting like low tide had a baby with a saltine cracker, and he froze. She leaned in to hear him over the band, her shoulder brushing the bare skin of his forearm where his flannel sleeve was rolled up, and he caught the scent of cedar soap and clover honey on her collar. She had a thin scar slashing across her left eyebrow, and when he asked about it, she said she’d gotten stung by 17 bees at once last spring, her eye swelled shut so fast she tripped over a hive stand and face-planted into a patch of clover. He found himself telling her about the time he got zapped by a 12kV line on a job in 2012, his hard hat melted so bad it stuck to his hair, and she leaned in so close her braid brushed his cheek, her eyes fixed on his, no polite glancing away like most people did when he rambled about old linework stories.
Every time he tried to tell himself he should leave, that this was wrong, that he was being disloyal, she said something that anchored him to the spot: she noticed the union sticker on the back of his F-150 when she pulled into Carol’s driveway earlier, asked if he’d rebuilt the engine himself, said she’d been trying to find someone to help her fix up her old 1999 Ranger for months. When Carol limped over an hour later, saying her knee was throbbing too bad to stay, she asked Lila if she wanted a ride home, but Lila said she wanted to walk the boardwalk beach path back, it was only a mile, and Moe blurted out he’d walk with her, the planks were loose in spots, and it was dark enough you couldn’t see the cracks if you weren’t paying attention.
The boardwalk creaked under their boots, and the only sound besides their breathing was the crash of the waves and the distant hum of the band. Halfway to Carol’s street, Lila stopped at the access point, kicked her boots off, and stepped into the shallow surf, her jeans rolled up to her calves. She pointed down at the water, and when he stepped closer, he saw the bioluminescent plankton glowing pale blue around her ankles, lighting up every small ripple. She asked if he’d ever seen it before, and he shook his head, too busy staring at the way the blue glow caught the silver in her hair to form a coherent sentence. He kicked his own work boots off, rolled his jeans up, and stepped into the cold surf, his calves tightening at the shock of the temperature. When he reached down to pick up a smooth pearlescent shell half-buried in the sand, his hand brushed hers, and before he could pull away, she laced her fingers through his. Her palm was calloused from lifting hive boxes, rough against his own scarred, calloused hands, and the lead weight in his chest felt like it had cracked open, not gone, but light enough he could breathe again for the first time in two years. He knew his wife would have called him an idiot for moping this long, would have told him to stop being a martyr and go have a good time.
They walked the rest of the way to Carol’s porch, their jeans still damp at the cuffs, and she didn’t let go of his hand until they were standing on the top step. She said she was setting up three temporary hives in Carol’s backyard the next day, for the local wildflower population, and asked if he wanted to help. He nodded, said he’d bring his drill and a six pack of Yuengling at 10. She smiled, squeezed his hand once more before letting go, and stepped inside, the screen door slamming shut behind her. He walked back to his cottage barefoot, his boots slung over his shoulder, the salt water still cold on his ankles, and he didn’t feel a single flicker of guilt the whole walk home.
