Rafe Sorensen, 62, retired Forest Service fire crew boss, stood propped against the splintered wooden pole of the Lions Club beer tent, the cold condensation of his IPA seeping through the thin cotton of his faded 2018 wildfire season hoodie. He’d shown up only because his next door neighbor had badgered him for three weeks straight, said moping in his cabin on Fourth of July was a waste of good weather and even better fireworks, and he’d finally caved to get her to stop leaving blackberry pies on his porch he never ate. He’d spent the last 45 minutes avoiding small talk, nodding gruffly when old acquaintances waved, counting down the minutes until he could climb back in his beat-up Ford F-150 and head for the woods.
The crowd shifted, and a woman in an olive green park ranger uniform bumped his elbow hard enough to slosh a little beer down his wrist. She turned fast, apologetic, holding a lime seltzer in one hand, a crumpled stack of park trail maps in the other. Rafe recognized her immediately: Lila Marlow, 48, the new county park superintendent, daughter of the man who’d fired him from his first ever forest crew gig back in 1987, after Rafe had called him out for cutting safety corners to beat a project deadline. He’d nursed a petty grudge against the whole Marlow family for 36 years, had actively avoided her since she’d moved to the area six months prior, even when she’d left a note on his cabin door asking for advice on thinning overgrown brush in the north campground.
They talked for 20 minutes, the crowd thinning around them as people staked out spots for the fireworks, their knees brushing every time someone squeezed past the tent entrance. She held his gaze the whole time, no glancing over his shoulder for someone more interesting, no checking her phone, leaning in when he talked about the 2002 Biscuit Fire like she was actually interested in the details he hadn’t told anyone since his wife died eight years prior. When the first firework exploded overhead, painting the sky bright red, the crowd surged forward all at once, and she stumbled, her hand landing flat on his thigh to steady herself, her palm warm through the worn denim of his work jeans. She didn’t move it right away, just looked up at him, her eyes glinting from the light of the fireworks, her breath catching a little when he didn’t pull away.
“I left that note on your door three times,” she said, leaning in so close her breath was warm against his ear, her thumb brushing the edge of the scar on his knuckle where a falling branch had caught him in 2019. “Thought you were just gonna ignore me forever.” Rafe shook his head, the last of his stubborn resistance melting away, the grudge he’d carried for decades feeling stupid, trivial, next to the weight of her hand on his leg, the way she was looking at him like he was someone worth paying attention to. “I was being an idiot,” he said, covering her hand with his, his calloused fingers wrapping around hers. He’d spent eight years telling himself he was fine alone, that he didn’t need anyone, that holding onto old grudges and old grief was easier than risking getting hurt again. For the first time in almost a decade, he knew he was wrong.
When the last firework faded to black and the crowd started cheering, he didn’t let go of her hand. He asked her if she wanted to get pancakes at the little diner off the highway the next morning, the one that served blueberry stacks big enough to feed two, and she nodded, grinning, squeezing his hand once before she pulled it away to grab her stack of maps off the ground. He watched her walk to her truck, waving over her shoulder, and took a long sip of his warm beer, no longer in a hurry to get back to his empty cabin. The blackberry pie his neighbor had left on his porch that morning would still be there when he got home, and for the first time, he was actually looking forward to eating it.
