Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired commercial salmon fisherman, stood in the Friday night VFW fish fry line, scuffed work boots planted shoulder-width apart, paper plate held in calloused hands crisscrossed with thin scars from 38 years of winch accidents and sharp gillnet edges. His left cheek bore a thicker, silvery scar from the time a rogue wave slammed him into the boat’s railing in 2009, a story he’d told so many times he could recite it in his sleep. For eight years, ever since his wife Ellie died of ovarian cancer, he’d hit this fry every single week, sat at the same Formica table with the same three guys, ate the same cod and coleslaw, left at the same 7:30 pm mark to go home and work on restoring old crab traps in his garage. He’d made a rule for himself: no casual dates, no flirting, no anything that felt like he was replacing the woman he’d been married to for 34 years. The gossips in town had enough to talk about as it was, and he refused to give them ammo.
The line shifted, and he stepped forward, reaching for a lemon wedge from the plastic bowl on the counter at the exact same time a woman he didn’t recognize reached for the same one. Their knuckles brushed. He pulled his hand back fast, like he’d touched a hot stove, and glanced down. She was maybe 58, silver streaks running through thick auburn braids slung over one shoulder, a smudge of dark purple berry juice on the edge of her jaw, wearing a well-worn plaid flannel and muddy work boots. She smelled like wild blackberry and pine, the same scent that clung to Ellie’s jacket after she’d gone foraging in the woods behind their house. She held his eye contact for two full beats longer than polite, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a half grin, and didn’t pull her hand away right away. “Mara,” she said, nodding at him. “I run the foraging program for the town co-op. Moved here six months ago from Portland.”
Ronan grunted, grabbed a different lemon wedge, and mumbled his name before turning to walk to his table. He was mad at himself already, mad that his chest had tightened when she smiled, mad that he’d noticed the flecks of gold in her green eyes, mad that he’d even thought to compare her to Ellie. That was wrong. Disrespectful. He sat down across from his buddies, and they immediately noticed the flush on his neck. “Who’s that?” asked Jake, the retired longshoreman, nodding over Ronan’s shoulder. “She was staring at you like you’re the last cold beer in the cooler.” Ronan shrugged, stabbed a piece of cod with his plastic fork. “Nobody. Co-op lady.”
For the next 20 minutes, he couldn’t stop glancing over at her. She was leaning against the counter, laughing at a dumb joke one of the WWII vets was telling, her head tilted back, a crumb of fried potato stuck to the corner of her mouth. She caught him looking once, winked, and took a sip of iced tea. His buddies kept ribbing him, shoving his shoulder, saying he’d been moping for long enough, that Ellie would kick his ass if she saw him turning down a pretty woman who clearly wanted to talk to him. He argued back, said it wasn’t right, that he wasn’t that kind of guy, that he’d made a promise. But the thought wouldn’t leave his head: she smells like the woods. She knows what foraging is. She didn’t look at his scar like it was something to feel bad for.
He got up 10 minutes later to get a slice of peach pie, and she was standing by the dessert table, holding a jar of dark purple jam, twisting the lid back and forth. “I made this this weekend,” she said, holding it out to him. “Wild blackberry, picked up near the old logging road. Want a taste?” She grabbed a plastic spoon, scooped a little out, and held it out to him. He hesitated for a second, then leaned forward and ate it off the spoon. It was sweet and tart, just like Ellie’s, but a little brighter, like she’d added a splash of lemon zest. Their fingers brushed when she took the spoon back, and this time he didn’t flinch.
“I’ve been asking people about you,” she said, leaning in a little, her shoulder almost touching his, so close he could feel the heat off her flannel. “I heard you know every inch of the Youngs River banks. I’ve been trying to find good salmonberry patches for the co-op’s summer jam sales, but all the public spots are picked clean.” Ronan nodded, his throat a little tight. “South bank, three miles up from the old cannery,” he said. “Road’s washed out in two spots, though. You can’t get there in a regular car.” She tilted her head, that half grin back on her face. “You got a four-wheeler?” He did. He’d bought it last spring, had only used it to haul crab traps back and forth from the river. “Yeah,” he said. “I could show you. Saturday, 8 am. Bring bug spray. The mosquitoes out there are big enough to carry off a small dog.”
She laughed, that low throaty laugh he’d heard earlier, and pulled a scrap of paper out of her pocket, scribbled her phone number on it, and handed it to him. “I’ll bring the picnic,” she said. “Sourdough I baked last night, smoked salmon I picked up from the fish market, that bottle of rye I saw in the back of your truck last week when you were unloading traps. Figured you’d appreciate a drink after tramping through the brush.” He stared at the paper in his hand, the numbers scrawled in messy blue ink, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t feel guilty for feeling excited.
He walked back to his table, slipped the paper into the pocket of his work jeans, and ignored the hoots and catcalls from his buddies, flipping them off with a grin so wide his cheeks ached. He took a bite of the peach pie he’d grabbed, and it was sweeter than it had tasted in years. He glanced back over at Mara, and she was tucking the jam jar into her canvas tote, already looking up at him, giving him a small, warm wave. He lifted his plastic coffee cup in return, the cheap ceramic warm against the rough, scarred skin of his palm.
