Moe Hafner is 61, spent 31 years teaching high school woodshop in a small western Michigan town before retiring last spring, now runs a side business selling hand-finished cutting boards at the local farmers market. His biggest flaw is that he’s spent the 18 years since his divorce treating any romantic advance like a scam waiting to happen, convinced every woman his age who smiles at him is after the modest retirement nest egg he scraped together putting his two daughters through college out of pocket. He hasn’t been on a date since 2007.
The July air hangs thick and sweet the night of the town’s annual summer beer garden, thick with the smell of grilled bratwurst, hoppy IPA fizz, and lake breeze carrying the faint tang of wild raspberries from the woods at the edge of the park. Moe dragged a folding lawn chair out by the fence line, set three of his finest walnut and maple sample boards against the leg to show a couple who’d asked about custom orders earlier, and was halfway through his second hazy pale ale when someone dropped a chair so close to his right side their elbow brushed his when they set their drink down.
He turns to tell them there’s plenty of space elsewhere, and the words die in his throat. It’s Lila Marlow, his ex-wife’s younger sister, the last person on the planet he expected to see. He hasn’t talked to her since the divorce papers were signed, when she slipped him a pack of his favorite peppermint gum in the courthouse parking lot and told him her sister was making the biggest mistake of her life. She’s 52 now, freckles spread across her nose the same way they were when she was 20 and crashing on his couch after college parties, wearing a faded Detroit Tigers tank top and cutoff denim shorts, chipped pale blue nail polish on her fingers that matches the polish she wore back then.
She grins, leans in so close her coconut sunscreen smells stronger than the beer in his hand, raising her voice over the Marshall Tucker Band blaring from the speakers at the front of the park. “Thought that was you. I moved back last month to help Mom with her knee replacement. She still talks about that cutting board you made her for Christmas 2004, says no other board can handle her pickled beet slicing.”
Moe’s throat feels tight. He’s always had a quiet, unacknowledged soft spot for Lila, back when he was married, back when he’d drive her home from the bars at 2am and listen to her rant about her terrible boyfriends, but he’d never acted on it, never even let himself think about it for more than two seconds. It felt wrong, like crossing a line he’d drawn for himself the day he married her sister. The split from his ex was ugly, full of accusations and fights over the house and the girls’ college funds, and he’d written off the entire Marlow family as people he never wanted to see again. But here Lila is, laughing at his dumb joke about the time he cut off the tip of his thumb in shop class freshman year, reaching out to run her finger along the grain of the walnut sample board propped against his chair, her hand brushing his when she pulls back.
He flinches at first, then doesn’t move away. She keeps leaning in when she talks, her breath smelling like cherry seltzer and spearmint gum, her knee brushing his every time she shifts to wave at a kid she knows from her new elementary school library job. She asks about his daughters, remembers the older one dreamed of being a marine biologist at 10, remembers the younger one played violin in the high school orchestra. She says she never understood why her sister left him for a golf pro who couldn’t even change a flat tire, says he always deserved better.
Moe’s chest feels tight, warring between the sharp, familiar pull of desire he hasn’t felt in years and the quiet, pricking guilt at even entertaining the thought of being with his ex-wife’s sister. It’s a rule he’s clung to for almost two decades, a line he swore he’d never cross, but as the sun dips below the lake and paints the sky pink and tangerine, he finds himself leaning in too, asking about the vintage postcard collection he remembers she carried in a shoebox as a kid, laughing when she complains about her mom’s obsession with daytime soap operas.
The first firework cracks loud above the lake, painting the sky bright blue, and everyone around them stands to get a better view. Lila grabs his hand without thinking, yanking him up next to her, her palm soft and calloused at the edges from turning library pages all day. He doesn’t let go. They stand shoulder to shoulder, her hip pressed to his, her thumb brushing the back of his hand every time a new firework bursts above the water, and Moe realizes the rule he’s been hiding behind for 18 years is stupid, that he’s spent so long avoiding getting hurt he’s been avoiding living entirely.
When the last firework fades and the crowd starts to disperse, Lila turns to him, still holding his hand, faint leftover firework glow gilding her freckles. She asks if he wants to get late breakfast at the diner downtown tomorrow, says she’s been looking for someone to build her a custom shelf for her postcard collection, that she’ll pay him in blueberry pancakes and endless coffee refills. Moe says yes before he can overthink it.
She squeezes his hand once before letting go, walks to her beat-up pickup truck parked on the side of the road, waves over her shoulder before she climbs in. Moe stands there for a minute, sipping the last of his warm, flat beer, the smell of gunpowder from the fireworks still hanging thick in the air, and pulls his phone out to reschedule the 10am dental cleaning he’d booked for tomorrow to the following week.
