Manny Rios, 62, spent 31 years as a Border Patrol canine handler before retiring three years prior, and he’d avoided every public event in his small West Texas town for the eight years since his wife passed. The only exception was anything his 10-year-old granddaughter was involved in, so when she begged him to come to the annual fall chili cookoff where she’d entered the junior division, he couldn’t say no. He showed up in his usual uniform: scuffed work boots, faded gray flannel, the beat-up straw Stetson he’d had since his first patrol assignment in 1994, and he parked himself against a split-rail fence at the edge of the fairgrounds, cold Shiner Bock in hand, trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone he knew.
The air smelled like smoked brisket, cumin, and the faint dust of mesquite drifting over from the cooking pits, and mariachi music warbled from a speaker at the far end of the field where the award stage was set up. He was halfway through his beer when someone bumped his elbow hard enough that a drop sloshed over the rim onto his wrist. He turned, ready to snap, and froze. Lila Marquez, 58, ran the town’s only small animal vet clinic, and she was the ex-wife of his old patrol partner, Jesse, who he hadn’t spoken to in 12 years over a stupid, bitter fight about a promotion neither of them ended up getting. She was holding a crumpled stack of napkins, her curly dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, and she smelled like lavender hand soap and cedar from the chew stick she always had tucked behind her ear.
“Sorry about that,” she said, grinning, dabbing at his wrist with a napkin before he could pull away. Her forearm was warm, sun-kissed, the skin dusted with fine light hair, and her nail polish was chipped pale blue, the exact same shade she’d worn back when he, Jesse, and Lila would spend weekends camping out at the state park with their kids, back before everything got messy. He tensed up immediately, half ready to make an excuse and leave, the old guilt coiling tight in his chest. He’d never apologized to Jesse for the fight, never checked in when he heard Lila and Jesse split six years prior, too proud and too stuck in his own grief after his wife died to reach out.
“Didn’t think I’d see you here,” she said, leaning against the fence next to him, close enough that her shoulder brushed his every time she shifted her weight. “Everyone says you’re a hermit these days.” She nodded at the junior cookoff tent where his granddaughter was bouncing up and down, showing off her chili pot to a group of other kids. “I tried your girl’s entry earlier. No cilantro, which automatically makes it the best thing here. I put my vote in for her.” Manny blinked, surprised she remembered he hated cilantro, that he’d passed that pet peeve down to his granddaughter. He couldn’t remember the last time someone who wasn’t his immediate family remembered a small thing about him.
He kept waiting for the awkwardness to hit, for the guilt to win out and make him leave, but it didn’t. She told him stories about the rescue dogs she was fostering, laughed when he told her about his old K-9 partner, Duke, who’d lived to 14 and spent his retirement stealing sandwiches off his kitchen counter. Every time she laughed, she tilted her head back, and a strand of hair fell loose in her face, and he had to fight the urge to tuck it behind her ear. When she passed him a paper bowl of her own chili, their fingers brushed, and he felt a jolt go up his arm he hadn’t felt since his wife was alive.
He finally brought up Jesse, his voice tight, said he knew he was an idiot for letting the fight go on that long, for never checking in on her after the split. She waved it off, snorting, leaning in a little closer so her knee brushed his, the rough fabric of her jeans scraping against his. “Jesse’s living in Albuquerque with a 28-year-old hot yoga instructor who makes him drink wheatgrass shots every morning,” she said, grinning. “Trust me, he’s not thinking about that promotion, and he definitely doesn’t care if we talk. I’ve been trying to run into you for months, anyway. Knew the only way you’d leave that ranch of yours was for that kid.”
The announcement blared over the speaker a minute later, calling the junior division contestants up to the stage. His granddaughter ran over, grabbing his hand, yanking him toward the stage, and Lila followed right behind them. The kid won first place, waving a bright blue ribbon over her head, and Manny’s face hurt from grinning so wide. When they walked back toward the fence, Lila nodded toward the parking lot, where her beat-up Ford Ranger was parked half a mile away, right by the edge of the river. “I got a cooler of cold Shiner in the back,” she said, biting her lower lip a little, the way she used to when she was nervous back when they were younger. “Awards go on for another two hours. We could go sit by the water, avoid all the small talk, if you want.”
He didn’t even hesitate, nodding before she finished the sentence, the tight knot of grief and guilt he’d carried in his chest for almost a decade loosening up enough that he could breathe easy for the first time in years. He tucked his granddaughter’s ribbon into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt, and when Lila rested her hand on his elbow to lead him over to tell his daughter where they were going, he didn’t pull away.
