Rafe Mendez is 59, runs a vintage camper restoration shop out of a cinder block garage 20 minutes east of Austin, and hasn’t let anyone new into his after-hours workspace since his wife Diane died eight years prior. His biggest flaw, if you ask his only regular employee, is that he’d rather sand a fiberglass hull for 12 hours straight than ask for a hand with anything, even lifting a 100-pound roof panel. He’s at the annual Llano Fall Festival on a crisp October Saturday, plastic grocery bag slung over one shoulder full of rusted 1960s cabinet latches he dug out of a vendor’s junk pile, lukewarm Lone Star in his other hand, when he turns to avoid a group of rowdy preteens chasing a goat and bumps right into someone.
The woman’s soft leather jacket brushes his sun-warmed forearm, and she smells like vanilla candle wax and the cedar mulch she’s probably been hauling all week. It’s Lila Marlow, Diane’s high school rival’s daughter, the last person he expected to see. He hasn’t talked to her since her wedding in San Antonio six years prior, when she’d snuck him a slice of chocolate cake before the reception even started and teased him for wearing a tie that looked like it came off a used car salesman. She’s 37 now, dark hair streaked with a single strand of silver at the temple, laugh lines fanning out at the corners of her eyes when she recognizes him and grins. She’s just moved back to the area, she says, divorced from the tech bro who cheated on her with his executive assistant, renting a small cottage 10 minutes down the road from his shop, starting a native plant nursery in the backyard.
She shows up two nights later, six pack of the hazy IPA he’d mentioned liking at the festival in one hand, tupperware of chocolate chip cookies in the other. The shop is warm, the overhead string lights casting soft gold over the half-restored Shasta, the radio playing low 90s country, the air thick with the smell of paint thinner and cedar shavings. His old labrador, Mabel, wags her tail once and goes back to napping on her dog bed by the space heater. They circle the Shasta, him pointing out the new hardwood floor he laid last weekend, the custom dinette he’s building out of reclaimed oak from an old barn that fell down on his property last spring. She leans over to run her fingers along the edge of the counter he just installed, her dark hair falling over her shoulder, and the ends brush the back of his hand where he’s resting it on the camper frame. He doesn’t move.
She looks up at him, doesn’t step back, the toe of her leather boot almost touching his work boot. “I always thought you wasted too much of your life being perfect for her,” she says, quiet enough only he can hear it. The words land like a punch to the chest, not in a bad way, in the way that makes him realize he’s spent eight years punishing himself for wanting anything that didn’t fit the perfect widower role Diane’s family had carved out for him. He lifts his hand, brushes the strand of silver hair back from her temple, his thumb grazing her cheekbone, and she tilts her chin up, no hesitation. The kiss is slow, no rush, her hand coming to rest on his waist, the smell of vanilla wrapping around him, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel guilty for wanting something that’s just for him.
Mabel huffs in her sleep, rolling onto her back, and neither of them pulls away.
