Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired commercial salmon fisherman, had only showed up to the Astoria summer street fair to drop off a smoked sockeye fillet for the charity auction, and he’d planned to hightail it back to his river cabin before any of the well-meaning local widows could corner him to set him up with their cousins or church friends. He’d spent eight years avoiding exactly that kind of attention, ever since his wife Eileen died of breast cancer, stubbornly clinging to the routine of mending nets, reading tattered maritime history books, and eating canned chili for dinner alone like it was a penance. The only reason he’d even entered the raffle at the auction booth was because his niece had shoved a ticket in his hand and called him a grumpy old hermit, and now he was toting a dented 12-inch cast iron skillet slung over one shoulder, already mentally mapping out where he’d hang it above his wood stove.
He rounded the corner by the lemonade stand fast enough that his shoulder slammed into a woman carrying a stack of neon-pink library fliers, sending them skittering across the sticky asphalt. The smell of lavender and lemon furniture polish hit him before he could mumble an apology, and when he knelt to help gather the papers, he caught sight of the name tag pinned to her linen button-down: Clara Bennett, head librarian. He’d talked to her half a dozen times over the phone, renewing old accounts of 1970s salmon fishing expeditions he’d checked out three times already, but they’d never met in person. She was 58, he remembered from the small town gossip mill, had moved from Portland six months prior, and had been catching hell from a group of surly retired loggers down at the bait shop for hosting drag queen story hour at the library.
Ronan tensed, his jaw tightening. He’d gotten into a screaming match with three of the loggers at the bait shop two weeks prior, when they’d said they were going to picket the library and call child protective services on Clara for “corrupting the kids.” He’d never told anyone he’d done that, had just shrugged it off as none of their business, but now he admitted it, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. She laughed, a low, throaty sound, and leaned in even closer, so he could feel her warm breath on the side of his neck when she said she’d heard. The loggers had sent her 17 nasty emails, she said, but she’d printed every single one out and taped them to the back of the library’s break room door, next to a photo of the drag queen who hosted story hour holding a stack of picture books about salmon.
He almost made an excuse to leave right then, the familiar twist of guilt coiling in his gut. He’d spent so long telling himself he’d never be interested in anyone else that the warm, low hum of attraction pulling him toward her felt like a betrayal of Eileen, like he was breaking a promise he’d made to her deathbed. But before he could mumble something about getting home to feed his dog (he didn’t have a dog), she asked him if he wanted to split an order of elephant ears, and he couldn’t say no.
They sat on a splintered wooden bench overlooking the Columbia, the river briny and gray under the hazy summer sun, passing the sugar-dusted fried dough back and forth. Powdered sugar stuck to her chin, and he reached out without thinking to wipe it off with his thumb, his hand lingering on her jaw for a beat longer than necessary. She didn’t pull away, just held his gaze, and he blurted out that he hadn’t talked to a woman this long since Eileen died, that he felt stupid for even wanting to, that he’d thought he’d spend the rest of his life alone. She told him her husband had died in a cycling accident five years prior, that she’d moved to Astoria because she couldn’t stand the empty house in Portland anymore, that she’d spent three years refusing to go on a single date before she’d realized grief didn’t mean she had to be lonely forever.
She took the flier, tucked it into the breast pocket of her shirt, and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek, slow, her lips soft and warm against his sunburnt skin. She said she’d call him at 9 a.m. sharp the next day, and he better not have his phone turned off like he did when he was out fishing alone. He stood there holding his cast iron skillet, watching her taillights fade down the road, the taste of powdered sugar still on his thumb and the salt wind tangling his gray hair, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t feel like rushing home to an empty house.
