The July humidity clings to Roman Voss’s flannel shirt like a damp hand, even with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing the faded lineman tattoo curling around his left bicep. At 62, he’s still broad across the shoulders, hands scarred from 38 years climbing transmission poles in western North Carolina’s backcountry, the only soft part of him the half-warm can of Pabst he’s been nursing for 20 minutes at the county fire department’s monthly cookout. He’s only here because the new recruits begged him to bring his famous smoked brisket, and he can never say no to kids who run into burning houses for fun.
He spots her first through the haze of charcoal smoke, auburn hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, cut-off denim shirt unbuttoned just enough to show the edge of a silver sun pendant around her neck, the same one his late wife Lila gave her for her 21st birthday. His jaw tightens. He hasn’t spoken to Elara in 18 years, not since the funeral, when he’d been half out of his mind on oxy and grief, convinced she’d called him reckless for letting Lila drive alone in that ice storm. He’d walked away before she could finish talking, blocked her number, skipped every family gathering after that.
She cuts through the crowd of yelling cornhole players straight to him, no hesitation. She stands close enough he catches the scent of coconut sunscreen and the faint burn of bourbon on her breath when she speaks, loud enough to be heard over the radio blaring old George Strait. “Figured I’d find you here. Mom always said you’d rather hang out with firemen than your own family.”
He grunts, wiping condensation from his can onto the thigh of his worn work jeans. “Thought you were still in Portland doing that therapist nonsense.”
“Retired last month. I’m here to settle Mom’s estate.” She leans against the picnic table next to him, her shoulder brushing his, and he tenses like he’s touched a live wire. She smirks, like she notices. “For the record, I never called you reckless. I said you were being too hard on yourself. You were so hopped up on pills that day you only heard the first half of the sentence.”
The words hit him like a punch to the gut. All that anger, all those years of avoiding her, built on a misheard sentence. He blinks, takes a long sip of beer, doesn’t trust himself to speak right away. She reaches past him for a bag of barbecue chips on the table edge, her forearm brushing the coarse hair on his thigh, and he jolts a little, heat creeping up his neck that has nothing to do with the 90 degree heat.
They move to the tailgate of his beat-up 2008 F150 to get away from the noise, away from the guys who keep yelling over to ask him to judge their brisket entries. She sits on the bumper, boots propped on the hitch, and he leans against the truck bed next to her, their knees knocking every time one of them shifts. The sun dips low, painting the Blue Ridge peaks pink behind her, and he finds himself staring at the freckles across her nose, the little scar above her left eyebrow from when Lila dared her to jump off the barn roof when they were kids. He’d been the one to drive her to the ER that day, had held her hand while the doctor stitched her up, had felt that same stupid flutter in his chest back then, even when he was three months away from marrying Lila.
He admits it before he can think better of it, voice rough, like he’s pulling the words off a rusted power line. “I avoided you not just because I thought you hated me. I avoided you because I felt guilty for noticing how pretty you were, even when I was married to your sister.”
She goes quiet for a second, then laughs, soft and low, and reaches up to brush a smudge of charcoal off his cheek, her thumb lingering on the edge of his jaw for two, three heartbeats, calloused from her years of gardening, he notices. “Funny. I avoided you for the same reason. Was so scared I’d say something stupid at the funeral and make everything worse, I just left before I could mess it up.”
They talk for another hour, while the cookout wraps up, while the fire guys load up the coolers and yell their goodbyes, while the crickets start chirping in the woods next to the station. She tells him about her little cottage in Portland, about the rescue lab she adopted last year, about how she’d always loved the mountains more than the coast. He tells her about the cabin he built on 40 acres outside town, about the solar array he put in himself, about how he still climbs the occasional transmission pole just to feel the wind in his hair.
When the last of the fire trucks pulls out of the lot, she hops off the tailgate, adjusts the strap of her canvas bag over her shoulder, and tilts her head up at him, eyes glinting in the light of the parking lot lamppost. “There’s that old diner off the Blue Ridge Parkway, the one with the peach pie Lila used to beg us to drive an hour for. They’re open till 10. You wanna go?”
He nods, already reaching for the truck door handle, the last of that old misplaced anger melting clean out of his chest. He holds the passenger door open for her, and when she climbs in, her hand brushes his for half a second, warm and steady. He slides into the driver’s seat, twists the key until the engine rumbles to life, and pulls out of the empty lot toward the parkway, cool mountain air streaming through the open window, carrying the faint, sweet scent of her coconut sunscreen and the soft sound of her humming a Patsy Cline track he hasn’t heard in 20 years.
