Leo Voss is 61, retired wildland fire crew supervisor, three years out from burying his wife of 32 years, and he’d rather be perched on his back porch splitting firewood than sweating through his faded denim shirt at the county fire department’s annual fundraiser cookout. His old crew badgered him into showing up, said they missed his dry, no-bullshit commentary on the new hires’ lousy fire line tactics, and he caved mostly to get them to stop leaving voice notes on his beat-up flip phone. He’s camped at a rickety picnic table as far from the cornhole courts and blaring classic rock speaker as he can get, nursing a cold amber lager, when he first sees her.
She’s leaning against the raffle table stacked with gift cards to the local diner and a brand-new chainsaw, silver streaks running through the dark hair pulled loose from a claw clip, sundress the color of pine needles, smudges of dirt on her white canvas sneakers from the trail she hiked earlier that morning. He learns later her name is Elara, 58, the new town librarian, moved out from Portland six months prior after a messy divorce that left her craving small town quiet. He learns it because she trips over a cinder block holding down the raffle tablecloth, sends a stack of neon pink tickets skittering across the grass right at his feet, and he leans down to grab them before they blow into the nearby barbecue pit.
Their hands brush when they both reach for the same half-dozen tickets. Her skin is sun-warmed, calloused at the fingertips from turning thousands of book pages, and he catches a faint whiff of jasmine hand lotion mixed with the pine sap she picked up on her hike. He freezes for half a second, yanks his hand back like he touched a hot stove, and shoves the tickets at her without meeting her eye. He hates that his chest feels tight, hates that he’s even noticing how the golden hour light catches the tiny silver hoop earrings she’s wearing, hates that the first thought that crosses his mind is that Mary would have liked her dress. It feels like betrayal, like he’s cheating on the woman who sat up with him for three straight days when his crew lost two guys in the 2018 Gorge fire, who left him sticky notes with bad jokes in his lunch pail every shift for 20 years.
She doesn’t push, doesn’t apologize for the accidental touch, just smirks, tucks the tickets under her arm, and says “Thanks, fire guy. You want a free pulled pork slider for your trouble? I’ve got a whole stack of meal tickets they made me hand out, and I’d rather give them to someone who doesn’t look like he’s gonna hit on me before he takes the first bite.” He snorts before he can stop himself, nods, and five minutes later she’s sliding a paper plate stacked high with smoked pork and coleslaw across the table at him, her shoulder brushing his sunburnt forearm through the thin cotton of her dress when she leans in to set down an extra side of dill pickles. This time he doesn’t flinch.
She pulls out the bench across from him and sits, no questions about his worn wedding ring, no soft pitying looks when he mentions he’s been living alone since his wife passed, just asks about the faded crew patch sewn to the breast of his denim shirt, wants to hear what it was like to fight the 2017 Eagle Creek fire. He talks for nearly half an hour, he counts later, tells her about the way the fire turned the sky orange for three weeks, about the time his crew saved a family of bobcats from a burning stand of firs, about how Mary brought them all homemade lemonade at base camp every other night. He hasn’t talked about Mary to anyone who didn’t already know her in three years, and it doesn’t feel like picking at a scab, it feels like letting air hit a wound that’s been covered too long.
The band switches to a slow, smoky 70s soul track he and Mary used to dance to in their kitchen after dinner, and Elara tilts her head at him, one eyebrow raised. “You gonna make me dance alone, fire guy? I promise I won’t step on your boots. Too hard, anyway.” He hesitates, his throat tight, thinks about all the nights he sat at home alone refusing to listen to that radio station, thinks about how Mary used to tease him for having two left feet but still dragged him to every wedding dance they were invited to. He stands up, wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans, and holds out a hand.
She fits against him easier than he expects, her hand resting light on his chest, his hand splayed low on her waist, the faint scent of jasmine wrapping around him as they sway slow to the music. She doesn’t comment when his grip tightens a little at the first verse, just leans a little closer, her forehead almost touching his shoulder, and he realizes he’s not angry at himself for being here, not angry at her for making him feel something other than hollow for the first time in years. Mary would have yelled at him for moping around the house for three years, would have told him to stop being an idiot and talk to the nice librarian with the pine needle dress.
The song ends, and neither of them pulls away immediately. She looks up at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners, and he can hear the distant pop of fireworks the fire department set off for the kids, the sound of his old crew whooping and catcalling from the next table over, the thud of his own heart beating faster than it has since he ran his last fire line. He offers to walk her home when the event wraps up, says he’s got a heavy-duty flashlight in his truck and the trail to her cottage goes past a patch of blackberries that are just ripe enough to pick.
She nods, slips her hand into his when they start walking, her calloused fingers tangled with his own scarred, fire-roughened ones, and he doesn’t let go.
