Manny Rios, 62, retired air traffic controller, wiped a bead of sweat off his brow with the back of a calloused hand, the 92-degree Tucson July heat sticking his faded work flannel to his shoulders. He’d set up his woodcarving booth at the west side street fair at 7 a.m., his hand-carved roadrunners, coyotes, and tiny saguaro figurines lined up on a folding table, the same gig he’d done every other weekend since his wife Elaina died 8 years prior. His biggest flaw, the one he’d never admit out loud, was that he’d built a wall around himself thick enough to keep out even the most well-meaning neighbors, convinced letting anyone close meant setting himself up for the same gut punch he got when Elaina’s cancer took her fast.
The scent of lime and smoked chipotle hit him before he saw the woman hauling crates of hot sauce into the booth next to his, the one that’d been empty the last three fairs. He glanced up, and his throat went dry. It was Lila, Elaina’s younger sister, the one who’d moved to Oregon right after the funeral and hadn’t spoken to anyone in the family since. She was 58 now, her dark hair streaked with silver, tied back in a loose braid, a smudge of chili powder on her left cheek, the same gap between her two front teeth he’d teased her about since she was 19. She looked up, caught him staring, and smirked, wiping her hands on her cutoff denim shorts. “You still carve those goofy little roadrunners? I thought Elaina would’ve talked you out of that nonsense by now.”
He fumbled for a bottle of water, unscrewing the cap so fast half the contents sloshed onto his jeans. Lila had been the wild one, the kid who’d snuck him a beer before his wedding when he was panicking so bad he thought he’d pass out, the one who’d patched up his wrist after he crashed his dirt bike in the desert when Elaina was out of town for a work conference, the one who’d held his hand so tight at Elaina’s funeral her nails left half-moon marks that lasted a week. He’d spent 40 years shoving down the tiny, stupid spark he’d always felt for her, writing it off as some dumb midlife crush, a betrayal he wouldn’t let himself entertain.
They made small talk as the fair picked up, locals drifting by, sampling Lila’s sauces, picking up Manny’s carvings to admire the grain. She leaned over once to grab a jar of extra hot habanero for a customer, her hip brushing his where he stood by the edge of his booth, the heat of her skin seeping through his denim. She didn’t step away for half a beat, her shoulder pressed to his, and he could smell the coconut shampoo in her hair under the chili fumes. He caught her staring at the faint scar on his left wrist later, when he was handing a kid a tiny carved coyote, and she smiled, soft, like she was remembering the day she’d glued that cut shut with a first aid kit she kept in her old pickup.
The conflict gnawed at him all afternoon, hot and tight in his chest. It was wrong, wasn’t it? To look at his dead wife’s sister and notice the way her sun dress fit her shoulders, to laugh at her dumb jokes about bad Oregon craft beer, to want to sit and talk to her until the sun went down. He’d spent 8 years being the perfect widower, never going on dates, never even flirting with the waitress at his regular diner, and here he was, acting like a dumb 20-year-old just because a woman who knew every messy part of his history was standing 6 inches away.
The monsoon hit out of nowhere, dark clouds rolling in fast, fat raindrops splattering down so hard people yelped and ran for cover. They scrambled at the same time to yank tarps over their inventory, their hands brushing when they grabbed the same corner of the tarp strung between their booths, and they ended up huddled together under the small overhang of a nearby food truck when the rain came down too hard to stay by the tables. Their shoulders were pressed tight, their jeans soaked through at the cuffs, Lila’s braid dripping rain onto his arm. She tilted her head up to look at him, rain drops running down her cheeks, and her voice was quiet over the roar of the rain and the distant mariachi music still playing from the stage at the end of the street. “I always thought you wasted too much of your life being the good guy, Manny. You don’t have to be alone just because she’s gone.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, the sound of the rain drowning out everything else, the warmth of her body next to his cutting through the cold of the wet fabric on his skin. He’d spent so long feeling guilty for even wanting to be happy again, he’d forgotten what it felt like to not have to explain himself, to be around someone who didn’t look at him like he was a broken thing that needed fixing. He lifted a hand, brushed a wet strand of hair off her face, his thumb brushing the smudge of chili powder still on her cheek, and she leaned into the touch, no hesitation. “I missed you,” he said, quiet, like he was admitting something he’d been scared to say out loud for decades. “More than I should have.”
The rain let up as fast as it started, the sun peeking out through the clouds, steam rising off the hot asphalt. They walked back to their booths, pulling the tarps off, shaking water off the jars and carvings. She handed him a small jar of mango habanero sauce, the kind he’d loved back when Elaina was alive, the kind she used to smuggle into his house when Elaina wasn’t looking because it was too spicy for her. “I remembered,” she said, tucking it into the pocket of his flannel. He grabbed the smallest roadrunner carving from the back of his table, the one he’d carved for himself a month prior, the grain perfect, the beak just slightly crooked, and handed it to her. She tucked it into her purse, then grabbed a sauce label from a stack on her table, scribbled her phone number on the back, pressed it into his palm. “Mom’s making tamales Sunday. Come over. She’s been asking about you.”
He tucked the label into the inner pocket of his flannel, right next to the old photo of Elaina he kept there, and nodded. He watched her walk back to her side of the booth, the hem of her sun dress dotted with rain drops, laughing as a customer asked to sample her hottest sauce. For the first time in 8 years, he didn’t feel guilty for looking forward to something.
