Elio Mendez, 59, retired wildland firefighting crew boss, had to be strong-armed into showing up to the annual county volunteer fire department barbecue. His old crew had showed up on his porch the night before with a six pack of his favorite lager and a threat to drag him out by the scruff of his neck if he didn’t stop holing up in his cabin on the edge of the Willamette National Forest. It had been three years since his wife Lila died of ovarian cancer, and he’d skipped every community event in that span, convinced any small spark of joy he felt without her was a betrayal of the 32 years they’d spent together. That was his flaw, he knew it: he’d spent his whole career running toward fire to put it out, and now he was terrified of the smaller, softer fires that might start if he let his guard down.
He leaned against a splintered pine picnic table, sweating through the sleeves of his faded blue flannel, cold lager condensation dripping down his wrist, the scar on his left jaw from a 2018 burn twinging a little when the smoke from the pork grill drifted his way. The air smelled like mesquite, pine sap, and the sugary punch the junior firefighters were spiking with vodka when the chief wasn’t looking. Kids chased each other across the grass, screaming, and he smiled a little when he saw one of his old crew member’s toddlers tripping over a fire boot left in the dirt. He was just reaching for a paper plate piled high with pulled pork when a hip bumped hard into his side.
He stumbled a little, catching himself on the edge of the table, and looked down to see a woman holding a mason jar of pickled okra, her other hand pressed to his forearm to steady herself. She was mid-50s, sun-streaked auburn hair pulled back in a messy braid, work boots caked in clay mud from the valley farm fields, a smudge of pen on her left cheek. “Sorry about that,” she said, and her voice was low, rough, like she spent half her day yelling over tractor engines. Her palm was warm through the thin fabric of his flannel, and when she pulled her hand back her knuckles grazed the scar on his jaw, light as a spark. “I’m Clara, the new county ag extension agent. Heard all about you from the guys on the fire crew. Said you once carried a hiker with a broken ankle three miles out of a burn zone in 100 degree heat.”
Elio froze. He was used to people talking about his old job, but no one had looked at him like that in years—no playful smirk, no flicker of curiosity in her eyes, like she was interested in him, not just the stories. He mumbled a thank you, fumbling for a napkin to wipe the barbecue sauce off his thumb, and felt his face heat up like he was a 16 year old kid again, asking Lila to prom. He wanted to walk away, to go hide back in his truck and drive home to his empty cabin, but he couldn’t make his feet move. She smelled like lavender hand soap and diesel, a combination that shouldn’t have worked, but made something tight in his chest loosen a little.
They ended up drifting away from the crowd, sitting on the tailgate of his beat up 2008 Ford F-150, passing the jar of pickled okra back and forth. He told her about the time his crew got stuck in a controlled burn that jumped the line, huddled in a burned out creek bed for two hours while the fire raged around them, and she told him about the time she got chased by a bull while checking a farmer’s hay crop, climbing a barbed wire fence and tearing her favorite jeans in the process. She leaned in when he talked, her knee pressed firm against his, the fabric of her work pants rough against his jeans. When a piece of ash from the distant grill landed on his flannel shirt, she reached up to brush it off, her fingers lingering on his chest for half a second before she pulled back.
For a second, Elio’s first instinct was to flinch. He thought of Lila, of the way she used to brush lint off his shirt before he left for a fire shift, and a sharp twist of guilt hit him. But then Clara sighed, staring out at the pine trees lining the edge of the park. “I lost my husband two years ago,” she said, quiet, like she was admitting something she didn’t tell many people. “Heart attack, out of nowhere. I spent a year and a half thinking I’d never want to sit next to anyone ever again, let alone laugh with them. It’s not betrayal, you know. To want to feel alive again.”
That was the crack in the wall he’d built around himself. He’d spent three years telling himself he had to be miserable to honor Lila, that any happiness was a slap in the face to the life they’d built. But Clara was right, he realized. Lila would have yelled at him for wasting the rest of his life sitting alone in a dark cabin. He reached over, slow, like he was approaching a skittish deer, and brushed the smudge of pen off her cheek. She smiled, and her eyes crinkled at the corners, and for the first time in three years, he didn’t feel guilty for smiling back.
The sun dipped below the pine trees, painting the sky pink and orange, and the crowd at the barbecue was starting to pack up coolers and round up their kids. He asked her if she wanted to drive down to the diner on Main Street, get a slice of the huckleberry pie they made fresh every Saturday. She nodded, squeezing his hand before she hopped off the tailgate. He grabbed his jacket off the truck seat, holding the door open for her as the distant sound of a fire siren wailed soft and familiar through the cool evening air.
