Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired high-voltage lineman, limped into the Erie VFW post just after 6 p.m. last Friday, left knee throbbing from the cold October wind blowing off Lake Erie. He’d spent 38 years climbing utility poles in blizzards and thunderstorms, had retired three years prior after a rusted crossbeam gave out mid-storm and left him with a metal plate holding his tibia together. His biggest flaw, one he’d carried since his wife Eileen died seven years prior, was that he refused to accept help from anyone, refused to let anyone get close enough to see how quiet and empty his cabin outside town felt most nights. He’d had the same booth at the weekly fish fry for five years running, so he stopped short when he saw it occupied.
The woman sitting there looked up before he could turn to grab a bar stool, and he recognized her instantly: Clara Hale, 57, ex-wife of his old crew foreman Jake, who he’d carried a quiet, stupid, entirely off-limits crush on for the last 22 years. She was there dropping off stuffed animals for the post’s holiday toy drive, a stack of plush cats and dogs sitting on the seat next to her. She waved, patting the empty spot across from her, and Ronan hesitated for three full beats before limping over to sit. His knee knocked hers under the Formica table when he shifted to get comfortable, and he flinched like he’d been burned. She laughed, low and warm, the sound cutting through the jukebox’s Johnny Cash and the clink of beer mugs. “That knee still acting up? I remember when you came off that pole in 2018. Jake said you refused to take the ambulance, made the crew drive you to the ER yourself.”
Ronan scratched the back of his neck, calloused fingers catching on the gray stubble there. He could smell lavender hand cream on her, mixing with the fried cod and chili scent hanging in the air, and his mouth went dry. He’d never spoken more than three sentences to her back when he was on the crew, too worried Jake would catch him staring, too loyal to Eileen to even entertain the thought of looking at another woman. He nodded, sipping the beer the waitress set down in front of him, and when she offered him a menthol cigarette from the crumpled pack in her jacket pocket, he took it even though he’d quit smoking ten years prior.
They talked for an hour, leaning in over the table when the noise from the pool table got too loud, her elbow brushing his bicep every time she reached for her glass. He told her about the half dozen wood ducks that nested in the pond behind his cabin, she told him about the 12 foster dogs she had staying at her animal rescue outside of town, teased him about how he used to bring extra glazed donuts to 4 a.m. storm callouts and never said a word when Jake hoarded half of them for himself. “I always thought you were cute, back then,” she said, and Ronan froze, his beer halfway to his mouth. He’d spent weeks fighting the stupid, guilt-ridden spark he felt every time he saw her at crew cookouts, had convinced himself it was a betrayal of both his boss and his wife to even notice her, and now she was looking at him like she’d been waiting to say that for years.
When she asked if he’d walk her to her truck out back, the rain was coming down soft, the wind sharp enough to make her shiver in her thin flannel. He pulled his old work jacket, the one still embroidered with his name and the local utility company logo, off his shoulders and draped it over her, his knuckles brushing the side of her neck when he adjusted the collar. She tilted her head up before he could pull away, and kissed him, slow and soft, tasting like beer and menthol and the peppermint gum she’d been chewing. He could feel her fingers tangling in the gray hair at the nape of his neck, a spot no one had touched since Eileen died, and for a second he wanted to pull away, wanted to remind himself that this was Jake’s ex-wife, that he was supposed to be the loyal guy who never broke code, but the kiss felt too good, too right, like he’d been waiting for it just as long as she had.
They pulled apart after a minute, her laughing when he stared at her like he couldn’t believe what just happened. “Jake and I split three years ago, amicable,” she said, like she could read the question on his face. “He moved to Florida, remarried last year. I’ve been asking the guys at the post about you for months. Knew you’d be too stubborn to make the first move.” She nodded toward her beat-up pickup, the back full of dog crates and bags of feed. “I got a pot of beef stew simmering on the stove at my place. And a litter of foster kittens that need someone to sit with them so they get used to people. You in?”
Ronan nodded, limping around to open the passenger door for her, slinging his canvas duffel of groceries into the bed of the truck next to a bag of dog toys. He climbed in next to her, the heat from the vents blowing warm against his cold cheeks, and when she reached over to rest her hand on his good knee as she pulled out of the parking lot, he didn’t flinch, didn’t overthink it, just laced his calloused fingers through hers and watched the streetlights blur past the rain-streaked window.
