Garret Tatum, 63, has made a living selling wild Colorado honey for 17 years, after he quit his job as a high school woodshop teacher following his wife Elaine’s sudden heart attack in 2015. His biggest flaw? He’s spent the last eight years clinging so hard to the memory of what he lost, he’s refused every invitation to so much as a backyard cookout, convinced any new joy would be a betrayal of the 32 years he and Elaine had. The annual Palisade Harvest Festival is the only social event he forces himself to attend, and only because it’s his biggest sales weekend of the year.
He’s hauling a cooler of cold honey jars to the table when he spots her. Lila Marquez, 49, Elaine’s little brother’s ex-wife, the woman he’d only ever exchanged awkward small talk with at family weddings and funerals, the one everyone in town had unofficially deemed off-limits for him even before her divorce finalized six months prior. She’s manning the library’s book swap booth, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid streaked with a single silver strand at the temple, wearing a faded denim jacket and boots caked with the same red dust that coats his hive boxes.
He trips over a hay bale stake, fumbles a 16-oz jar of clover honey, and she lunges across the two feet of space between their booths to catch it before it shatters on the gravel. Their hands brush for three full seconds, her skin cool from holding a cup of iced horchata, his calloused from prying open hive lids and hauling 50-pound boxes of comb. The glass is slick with condensation, and the sweet, heady scent of clover mixes with the lavender hand cream she wears and the sharp, smoky smell of roasted green chiles from the food truck two booths down. She holds eye contact longer than she should, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a half grin, before she sets the jar gently on his table. “You always were clumsy with the good stuff,” she says, and he blinks, surprised she remembers that quirk of his from a decade of family gatherings he’d thought no one paid attention to.
The bluegrass band at the far end of the fairgrounds starts up a fast rendition of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” kids scream as the hay wagon rumbles past, and the air tastes like cotton candy and dry, sun-warmed sage. Garret tries to focus on stacking jars, but he can feel her eyes on him every time he turns away. Every so often she leans across the gap to ask a question, her shoulder brushing his when she reaches over to grab a sample stick of honey to try, her elbow knocking his when they both reach for a napkin at the same time. He’s torn between the sharp, hot pull of desire he hasn’t felt in eight years and the ugly, twisting guilt in his gut that tells him he’s doing something wrong, something disrespectful, something everyone in town will whisper about for months.
They talk through the lulls in foot traffic. He finds out she moved back to town to take the head librarian job after her divorce, that she’s been buying his honey from the general store for three years, that she loves the wild raspberry variety best because it tastes like the summer she was 16 and spent picking berries on Elaine’s family’s land. He tells her about the new hive he set up on the side of Grand Mesa this spring, about the rare blue honey the bees made from nectar off the wild alpine forget-me-nots, something he only pulls out for people he actually likes. She teases him about the blurry photo taped to his booth of him covered in bees for a charity stunt three years prior, and he laughs, a real laugh, not the tight polite one he saves for cashiers and distant relatives.
The sun dips low, painting the sky pink and orange, and the band slows down to play a cover of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line,” the same song that played at Elaine’s 30th birthday party, the night Garret and Lila danced once in the back of the barn while everyone else was drunk off spiked lemonade, and never spoke of it again. Lila leans against the edge of his booth, her arm brushing his, and says she remembers that night. Garret freezes, his throat tight, and admits he does too. She reaches up, brushes a stray bee hair off the sleeve of his flannel shirt, and lets her hand rest there for a beat, her thumb brushing the frayed cuff. “No one’s watching, Garret,” she says, soft enough only he can hear over the music. “We don’t have to pretend we don’t like each other just because everyone always thought we should.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long second, just stares at her, the gold of the sunset catching the flecks of amber in her dark eyes. He reaches into the back of his cooler, pulls out the small, labeled jar of blue honey he’d stashed there that morning, the one he’d planned to save for his sister’s birthday. He hands it to her, his fingers brushing hers again. “I got a batch of mead I brewed last fall back at my place,” he says, his voice rougher than he expects. “It’s made with that same blue honey. If you want to come by after we pack up.” She tucks the jar into her canvas library tote, grinning so wide the corners of her eyes crinkle, and nods. A couple walks up to ask about the wildflower honey, and she leans into his side just a little, like she’s already used to being there, like she belongs. He picks up the jar the couple is pointing to, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel like he’s cheating on the life he lost, just letting a new one start.
