Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired Puget Sound ferry captain, spends most days in his backyard shop refinishing vintage boat cleats and cutting boards for the local farmers market. He hasn’t brought a date anywhere since his wife Ellen passed eight years prior, his biggest flaw a stubborn refusal to let anyone close enough to chip at the thick wall of grief he’d built around himself. He avoids all neighborhood events until his next door neighbor Marnie showed up on his porch that morning with a jar of dill pickles and a threat to hide all his favorite woodworking files if he skipped the annual block party. He showed up an hour late, beer in a frosty can, hoodie faded with the Washington State Ferries logo frayed at the cuffs, leaned against the split rail fence at the edge of the cul de sac, tuned out the guy from down the street rambling about king salmon runs, watched kids chase each other with water guns, grill smoke curling thick enough to taste the charred hamburger grease on his tongue.
He’s half considering slipping out early when she walks up. Maeve, Ellen’s younger cousin, the one who moved into the old craftsman three doors down two months prior, the one he’s only seen through his kitchen window hauling planters and fixing her own gutter, the one he’d avoided eye contact with every time they crossed paths at the grocery store. She’s 54, dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, wears cutoff denim shorts and a faded Joni Mitchell t-shirt, bare feet in scuffed white Converse, holds a chipped ceramic plate heaped with peach cobbler, crust glistening with melted butter. She stops so close he can smell coconut shampoo and the sweet, sun-warmed peach scent coming off the dessert, her shoulder brushing his bicep when she holds the plate out. “Heard you’re the only person on this street who doesn’t hate my cooking,” she says, holds eye contact longer than polite, hazel eyes crinkled at the corners like she’s already laughing at whatever dumb excuse he’ll come up with.
He hesitates, fingers brushing the locket under his hoodie, the one with Ellen’s senior photo tucked inside. For 30 years, he’d written off the tiny, stupid spark he’d felt the first time he met Maeve, 19 and bright-eyed, visiting for their wedding, asking him to teach her to skip stones off the ferry dock. It felt wrong, back then, felt like a betrayal of the woman he’d promised to love forever, and he’d gone out of his way to keep his distance every time she came to visit. Now she’s here, standing so close he can count the freckles across her nose, and the guilt curdles in his stomach right next to the sharp, unignorable flare of desire. He takes the plate, his calloused fingers brushing hers, and he almost drops his half-empty beer can, fumbling it against the fence before he gets a better grip. She snorts, soft, not teasing, like she feels the same jolt he does.
They talk for 45 minutes, leaning against that fence, ignoring everyone else at the party. She tells him she left her husband of 25 years six months prior, caught him cheating with a 22-year-old paralegal at his law firm, moved back to Whidbey because it was the only place she ever felt like she belonged. He tells her about the woodworking shop, about the 12-foot rowboat he’s building out back, the one he’d promised Ellen he’d finish before he turned 65. She laughs when he complains about Marnie’s pickle obsession, and her laugh sounds like Ellen’s, warm and throaty, but not the same, enough that the guilt doesn’t feel as heavy. “Ellen used to say you’d mope yourself to death if someone didn’t kick your ass every once in a while,” she says, and he blinks, surprised, because he’d forgotten that Maeve knew Ellen as well as he did, back when they were kids running around the island together.
The sun starts to dip low, painting the sky pink and orange over the sound, and he asks her before he can overthink it if she wants to walk down to the shore to watch the rest of the sunset, away from the screaming kids and the grill smoke. She nods, fast, like she was waiting for him to ask. They walk the three blocks to the public beach, gravel crunching under their shoes, and she tells him about the bookstore she’s planning to open downtown, used books and fresh baked goods, the kind of place Ellen would’ve spent every Saturday. Halfway down the beach, she trips over a half-buried driftwood log, and he catches her without thinking, hands wrapped tight around her waist, her palms flat against his chest. She doesn’t step back, doesn’t apologize, just looks up at him, and when she leans in to kiss him, he doesn’t pull away.
The kiss is slow, a little awkward, like both of them are out of practice, like both of them are half waiting for the guilt to hit. It doesn’t, not the way he expected. He feels the salt wind on his face, the warmth of her skin under his hands, the distant horn of a ferry pulling into the dock across the sound, and all he feels is light, like the hollow ache he’s carried in his chest for eight years finally loosened up a little. They pull away after a minute, both a little red in the face, and she laughs, soft, tucks a strand of hair that fell loose from her braid behind her ear.
They sit on a weathered driftwood log, shoulder to shoulder, and watch the sun dip below the horizon, the sky turning deep purple and orange, the waves lapping soft against the pebbles at their feet. She rests her head on his shoulder, and he wraps his arm around her, his thumb brushing the bare skin of her upper arm slow, like he’s making sure she’s real, like he’s making sure this isn’t some stupid dream he’ll wake up from alone in his empty bed. He doesn’t care about the neighbors talking, doesn’t care about the stupid voice in the back of his head that tells him he’s doing something wrong. Ellen would’ve laughed at him for being so stubborn, for waiting eight years to stop feeling guilty for being alive. He plucks a stray piece of sea grass from her hair, and for the first time in nearly a decade, he doesn’t feel the need to look away when she smiles at him.
