Roland Voss, 62, retired high-tension line inspector, had no intention of staying longer than 10 minutes at the county fall festival. He’d hauled the 1972 CB radio he’d restored in his garage over to the raffle table, planned to grab a single paper cup of spiced cider and hightail it back to his workshop before anyone could corner him into small talk. His boots crunched over crumpled maple leaves dyed burnt orange and deep red, the air sharp enough to make his old frostbitten left knuckle throb, the faint twang of a bluegrass band carrying from the stage at the far end of the fairgrounds. He’d spent the last eight years building a routine so rigid it could have been carved into oak: wake at 6 a.m., feed his two hound dogs, tinker with whatever beat-up pickup he was fixing that month, eat a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, be in bed by 10. No exceptions. No room for anything that might make him feel like he was betraying the promise he’d made Elaine the week before she died of breast cancer, that he’d never replace her.
The cider booth had no line when he stepped up, the woman behind it leaning against the counter flipping through a dog-eared beekeeping catalog. He recognized her as Mara Hale, 58, who ran the beekeeping co-op on the edge of town; Elaine had traded her jars of homemade peach jam for wildflower honey every summer back when they were first married. She looked up when he cleared his throat, smiled, and the crinkles around her hazel eyes made his chest feel tight for a second he couldn’t explain. She grabbed a cup from the stack, filled it to the brim with steamy cider dotted with whole cloves and cinnamon sticks, and when she reached across the counter to hand it to him, her bare wrist brushed his. Her skin was warm, dotted with tiny faded bee sting scars, calloused along the palm just like his, rough from decades of hauling hives and twisting wire around hive frames. The cider sloshed a little over the edge, dripping onto his wrist, and she wiped it off with a paper napkin, her thumb brushing his skin for half a second before she pulled away. He fumbled a five dollar bill across the counter, told her to keep the change, and was halfway to turn away when she called his name.
She said she’d heard he was the one who’d restored the CB radio for the raffle, that her 10-year-old grandson was obsessed with old radio gear and had been begging her to bid on it. They talked for 10 minutes, then 20, the cider going cold in his hand while he told her about the time he’d had to climb a 90-foot power pole in a blizzard to fix a line that took out power for half the county, she told him about the time a swarm of bees landed on her arm while she was giving a demo to a local elementary school class, and she’d stood still for 20 minutes so the kids wouldn’t panic. He kept waiting for the guilt to hit, the sharp twist in his gut that always came when he let himself enjoy talking to someone who wasn’t Elaine, but it never came. Instead he noticed the way she tucked a strand of gray-streaked auburn hair behind her ear when she laughed, the faint sweet scent of clover honey that clung to her flannel shirt, the way she leaned in a little closer when he was talking, like she actually cared what he had to say, not just making polite small talk.
A shout went up from the hayride line a few dozen feet away, the old tractor pulling the wagon had died halfway up a small hill, the kids on the wagon whooping and yelling while the driver struggled to turn the ignition. Roland didn’t think twice before he stepped over to help, yanking his worn leather work gloves out of his jacket pocket, and 15 minutes later he had the tractor running again, but his flannel jacket had caught on a rusted fence post when he’d leaned over the engine, tearing a three-inch gash in the left elbow. Mara was waiting for him when he walked back over to the booth, holding a scuffed leather mending kit in her hand. She pulled a folding chair out from behind the counter, told him to sit, and he did before he could argue. She knelt in front of him, her shoulder pressed to his chest while she threaded a thick brown thread through a needle, and he could feel the warmth of her body through his shirt, hear the soft hum of her breathing over the noise of the crowd. When she looked up at him to make sure the stitch color matched the jacket, their faces were six inches apart, and he could taste the cinnamon and apple on her breath. He didn’t pull away. For the first time in eight years, he didn’t feel like he was doing something wrong.
She finished the stitch in five minutes, biting the thread off with her teeth when she was done, and brushed a stray piece of engine lint off his elbow like it was the most natural thing in the world. She pressed a small mason jar of wildflower honey into his palm before he stood up, the glass warm from sitting in the sun next to the cider pot, the label dotted with a crayon bee sticker her grandson had drawn. “Elaine used to bring me peach jam this time of year,” she said, her voice soft, no pity in it, no pressure. “If you’ve still got her recipe, you can bring a jar over next Saturday. I’ve got fresh honeycomb to share, straight from the hives.” He nodded, slipped the jar into his jacket pocket, and drove home with his windows down, the cold air whipping through his hair, the hounds snoring in the back seat. He set the honey jar on the kitchen counter next to the half-empty jar of peach jam he’d canned with Elaine the last summer she was alive, picked up his phone, and typed out a text saying he’d be there with the jam at noon.
