Elias Voss, 62, spent 28 years keeping Michigan’s Point Iroquois Lighthouse before retiring last spring to be closer to his granddaughter in Grand Rapids. He’s got a scar slashing his left eyebrow from a 2019 storm that knocked a metal hatch into his face, a garage full of rusted nautical gear he refurbishes for Great Lakes yacht clubs, and a hard rule he’s not broken since his wife Lois died of pancreatic cancer eight years prior: no dates, no flirting, no letting anyone get close enough to ask personal questions. The beer garden on 28th Street was supposed to be a one-off favor, dragged there by his 16-year-old granddaughter Lila who played fiddle for the opening act. He holds a cold IPA in one hand, flannel sleeves rolled to show the lighthouse tattoo curling up his forearm, half listening to the band grind through an indie folk Patsy Cline cover when he shifts to avoid a kid sprinting with a cotton candy cone, and his elbow slams hard into someone behind him.
He turns to apologize, face to face with a woman holding a hand-thrown ceramic tumbler, half the iced tea inside sloshed over the edge onto his flannel cuff. She’s 58, he guesses, auburn hair streaked with sun and thick gray roots pulled back in a braid, paint flecks spattered across her linen button-down cuffs, calloused fingers wrapped around the tumbler. She laughs first, low and rough like she smokes one cigarette each night after dinner, dabs at the wet spot on his sleeve with a crumpled napkin from her pocket. “I’ve been standing here seven minutes trying to work up the nerve to ask about that tattoo,” she says, nodding at his forearm, leaning in so he can hear her over the band, her shoulder brushing his bicep when a group of college kids squeezes past between picnic tables.
The first thought that hits him is guilt, sharp and hot, like he’s doing something wrong just talking to her. He’s spent eight years closing himself off, turning down dinner invites from widows at his church, ignoring baristas at his regular coffee shop who slip him extra pastries and write their numbers on receipts. He opens his mouth to brush her off, make up an excuse about waiting for his granddaughter, but then she holds up her tumbler to show the lighthouse etched into the side, and he stops. “I teach pottery at the community center,” she says, “I’m obsessed with Great Lakes lighthouses. Got a whole shelf of mugs I’ve thrown with their silhouettes on them.”
They talk for 40 minutes, standing so close their knees bump every time one shifts. He tells her about the time a flock of seagulls nested in the lighthouse lantern room and he had to climb up in a blizzard to clear them out, she tells him about her ex-husband who left her for a 28-year-old yoga instructor three years prior, how she still buys his favorite coffee even though she hates the taste. He doesn’t mention Lois at first, but when the band switches to a slow bluesy cover of Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues* — Lois’s favorite song to sing when they’d drink beer on the lighthouse porch after work — it slips out, rough and unplanned, that he hasn’t talked to a woman like this since she died. He expects her to back off, get awkward, apologize for prying, but she just nods, brushes a stray pine needle off his shoulder, her fingers grazing the skin of his neck for half a second. “I still haven’t worked up the nerve to go to the lumber yard alone,” she says. “He was a woodworker. All my best tools are his. I keep thinking I’ll run into him there, even though he moved to Arizona.”
The tight knot in his chest loosens, just a little. He hasn’t felt that kind of quiet understanding since Lois was alive, no pressure to move on, no pity, just someone who gets what it’s like to carry a ghost around with you. He surprises himself when he asks her if she wants to dance, and she surprises him right back when she says yes, tucking her tumbler under the picnic table and taking his calloused, grease-stained hand in hers. The dance floor is patchy dirt, dotted with crushed beer cans and cotton candy sticks, his bad knee aches from an old catwalk fall when he steps side to side, she steps on the toe of his work boot twice, laughing so hard she snorts, rests her head on his shoulder for three seconds, the smell of lavender and clay dust wrapping around him so thick he can taste it. He doesn’t feel guilty, not once, the entire time they’re dancing.
Lila finds him right as the set ends, fiddle case slung over her shoulder, grinning so wide her dimples show. “Grandpa, are you flirting?” she teases, and he rolls his eyes, but doesn’t let go of Maren’s hand long enough to deny it. Maren hands him a small round ceramic coaster etched with the Point Iroquois Lighthouse, her phone number scrawled on the bottom in silver Sharpie, tells him she’s got a beginner pottery class Saturday morning, he can stop by if he wants to see how she throws mugs, bring his own coffee if he hates the dark roast she keeps in the studio. He tucks the coaster into the inside pocket of his flannel, right over his heart, and walks her to her beat up Subaru Outback parked at the edge of the lot. She leans up and kisses his cheek, soft and quick, before she climbs in, and he can still feel the press of her lips on his skin long after she’s rolled the window down and waved.
He stands in the parking lot long after her taillights disappear around the corner, pressing the cool smooth ceramic of the coaster through his shirt, already crossing off his usual Saturday morning fishing trip from his mental to-do list.
