Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired electric lineworker for rural Ohio’s Paulding County Co-op, had no intention of staying at the Maplewood Summer Street Fair longer than 90 seconds. Eight years a widower, his biggest personality flaw was a stubborn refusal to let anyone chip away at the wall he’d built after his wife Diane died of lung cancer—he skipped every neighborhood cookout, turned down every invite to fish with his old crew, even avoided the grocery store on weekends because he hated small talk. He’d only dragged himself to the fair that muggy July evening to drop off his late sister’s prize peach pie for the annual baking contest, had left his hound dog Mabel tied on the porch with a heaping bowl of peanut butter to keep her occupied, planned to be home before the sun dipped below the cornfields.
The sky opened up without warning, fat, warm rain drops splattering against hot asphalt so fast the air filled with the sharp, sweet smell of cut grass and steam. He ducked under the closest awning, nearly knocking over a stack of glass jam jars as he stumbled back out of the downpour. The woman behind the booth caught the top jar mid-fall, laughing so hard her shoulders shook, and Ronan’s chest tightened like he’d just grabbed a live wire. Elara Voss, 58, had moved to town three months prior to open the tiny pie shop on Main Street, and he’d avoided her on purpose every time he’d walked past, had heard the old ladies at the post office whispering about how she was a divorcée from Pittsburgh who’d “come here to start over,” like that was a dirty secret.
She wiped rain off her cheek with the back of her hand, and he caught the flash of a thin, silvery scar wrapping around her left wrist before she tucked a strand of gray-streaked auburn hair behind her ear. She smelled like cinnamon and burnt sugar, her flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows, nail polish chipped the exact same sage green as the co-op utility trucks he’d driven for 30 years. “You owe me a strawberry jam if I’d dropped that,” she teased, nodding at his faded co-op ball cap, the logo so worn it was barely visible. “I’d know that hat anywhere. I was an apprentice lineworker outside Pittsburgh back in ‘94. Quit after I fell 25 feet off a pole and shattered my ankle.”
Ronan froze. He hadn’t talked about his old job with anyone outside his former crew in years, let alone a stranger. He rolled up the cuff of his work jeans to show the matching scar wrapping around his left calf, same silvery thickness, same cause: 120 volt line shock, 1994. Her eyes went wide, and she leaned in so close their shoulders brushed, he could feel the heat off her arm through his flannel. “No way,” she said, soft enough that only he could hear it, even over the drumming of rain on the awning. He felt a twist in his gut, half guilt that he was even letting himself enjoy this, half something warm and bright he hadn’t felt since Diane got her terminal diagnosis. He’d spent 8 years telling himself that any interest in another woman was a betrayal, that the town would whisper about him if they saw him so much as talking to a woman who wasn’t Diane’s cousin. He almost turned to leave, almost made up an excuse about Mabel needing him, but then she reached under the counter and handed him a spiced cider slushie, ice cold, condensation dripping down the side of the plastic cup. “On the house,” she said. “For not knocking my whole inventory into the mud.”
The slushie burned the back of his throat, sweet with a hint of nutmeg, exactly how Diane used to make them for him when he got home from 12 hour shifts in the middle of winter. He helped her stack her wood crates of jam on top of cinder blocks to keep them out of the growing puddles, their hands brushing when they both grabbed for the same crate handle at the same time. She didn’t jerk away, just held his gaze for a full two seconds, a tiny smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth, and he felt his ears go red, like he was 16 again asking a girl to prom. He teased her for storing her extra jam jars in dented old pickle buckets, she teased him for still carrying a utility knife on his belt even though he’d retired four years prior. He laughed, loud and unplanned, the kind of deep, chest-heavy laugh he’d forgotten he was capable of.
The rain slowed to a drizzle, then stopped completely, the fair’s string lights flickering back on, casting gold over the wet pavement. The announcer over the loudspeaker yelled that the fireworks were starting in 10 minutes down at the riverfront. Elara wiped her hands on her worn jeans, tilted her head at him, and asked if he had plans. He almost lied, almost said he had to get home to Mabel, but then he saw the scar on her wrist again, the chipped sage nail polish, the way she was looking at him like she already knew he was going to say yes. “Mabel’s got enough peanut butter to last her another hour,” he said, and she grinned so wide the corners of her eyes crinkled.
They walked the three blocks to the river together, their shoulders brushing every few steps, the air still thick with the smell of rain and fried funnel cake from the fair booths. A couple of his old co-op buddies waved at him from a picnic table, no smirks, no teasing, just nods like they’d been waiting for him to stop moping for years. When the first firework burst bright red over the dark water, she slipped her hand into his, calloused palm fitting perfectly against his own, and he didn’t pull away.
