Ronan Marlow, 62, retired Puget Sound ferry captain, leaned against the scuffed pine bar of the Anacortes Elk’s Lodge and twisted the label off his third IPA. He’d only shown up to his 44th high school reunion because his old deckhand bribed him with a case of limited-edition hazy IPA, and he’d planned to sneak out before anyone he recognized could corner him. His worst flaw, the one he’d carried since he was a kid bouncing between trailer parks while his mom worked three waitress jobs, was avoidance—he’d rather run from a hard conversation than risk looking like he didn’t have his life together. It was the same flaw that made him ghost his senior prom date three days after he got his ferry apprenticeship offer, too scared to tell her he thought a long-distance relationship would sink the first real shot he’d ever had at stability.
He’d just reached for his jacket to bail when he spotted her across the room. Elara Voss, now 61, owner of a local native plant nursery, was laughing so hard at a story from the former cheerleading captain that she snort-laughed, the same crinkle at the corner of her hazel eyes he’d memorized sitting next to her in 12th grade biology. Her silver-streaked auburn hair was pulled back in a messy braid, her linen work shirt dotted with pine sap, her work boots caked in mud from hauling salal flats that morning. He froze, his hand still on his jacket collar, when her gaze locked on his. She didn’t look away. She tilted her head, a faint, teasing smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and started walking toward him.
His throat went dry. Half of him wanted to bolt for the door, disgusted that he’d stuck around long enough to face the mess he’d made when he was 18. The other half couldn’t move, pinned in place by the quiet hum of want he’d never really shaken, the same feeling he’d had when she’d kissed him after prom, tasting like cherry soda and mint gum. She stopped 18 inches away, close enough that he could smell lavender lotion mixed with pine and sea salt, could see the faint smudge of charcoal on her left wrist from sketching a new trillium specimen that morning. She didn’t cross her arms, didn’t glare, just leaned in slightly to be heard over the Waylon Jennings track blaring from the jukebox.
“Took you long enough to show up,” she said, her voice warmer than he remembered. He stammered through an apology, tripping over his words as he explained how scared he’d been, how he’d carried the guilt of ghosting her every year since, how he’d almost written a hundred letters he never sent. He fumbled with his beer bottle so hard condensation dripped down his wrist, and she laughed, soft and not unkind, reaching out to brush a fleck of cedar sawdust (left over from the bluebird houses he built in his garage for the local Audubon chapter) off the sleeve of his faded flannel. Her fingers brushed his forearm for half a second, calloused from years of digging in dirt, and he felt a jolt like he’d grabbed a live wire on a ferry dock.
She told him she’d gotten the one letter he actually did send, three years after he left, stuffed in a box of her mom’s old things when she passed. She said she’d been mad for a decade, but her late husband, a commercial fisherman who died in a 2019 crab boat accident, had once told her people don’t run from things they don’t care about, and she’d started wondering if that’s what had happened with Ronan. They talked for three hours, the rest of the reunion crowd filtering out around them, the salt wind cutting through the open garage door and carrying the smell of fried cod from the food truck parked out front. She leaned in closer when a group of former football players yelled goodbye, her shoulder brushing his, and he didn’t move away.
When the bartender flipped off the neon open sign, he walked her to her beat-up 2018 Tacoma, the bed stacked with empty plant flats. She stopped at the driver’s side door, turned, and kissed him soft on the cheek, her lips warm even against the crisp October air. “I’ve got 20 flats of western red cedar to plant at my place tomorrow at 10,” she said, pulling her keys out of her pocket. “You can bring those bluebird houses you build. I’ve got 12 empty oak trees that need them.” He nodded, unable to speak for a second, and watched her pull out of the parking lot, her taillights fading around the bend by the waterfront. He lifted his hand to touch the spot where her lips had pressed against his skin, still warm even as the wind picked up and carried the distant sound of a ferry horn blowing across the sound.
