Clay Bennett, 58, retired US Forest Service ranger, has wiped down the same splintered pine picnic table at the Boise VFW’s Friday fish fry 127 weeks in a row. He’s got a scar snaking across his left knuckle from a 2019 grizzly encounter outside Missoula, a habit of tucking his flannel cuffs up to his elbows even when the September air nips at his forearms, and a flaw he’s never admitted out loud: he’s spent seven years punishing himself for feeling anything resembling attraction after his wife Ellie passed from ovarian cancer. He’d moved to Boise last year to be closer to his 6-year-old granddaughter, and he’d kept his circle tight—grandparent drop-offs, VFW volunteer shifts, solo hikes in the Boise National Forest, no small talk, no invitations, no mess.
The hum of the neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign above the food line cuts through the chatter when she walks in. He recognizes her immediately: Maren Hale, 56, Ellie’s cousin’s ex-wife, the woman who’d brought him a jar of homemade huckleberry jam after Ellie’s funeral, who’d left before he could even thank her. She’s the new head of adult programming at the downtown library, here to drop off flyers for a senior guided hiking series she’s launching. Her dark auburn hair has thick silver streaks framing her face, she’s wearing scuffed leather hiking boots and jeans with a frayed left cuff, there’s a smudge of blue ink on the edge of her jaw, and she’s carrying a stack of neon orange flyers tucked under one arm.
She spots him halfway across the pavilion, waves, and walks over, her boots crunching on discarded potato chip crumbs scattered across the asphalt. “Clay, right? Ranger Bennett?” Her voice is a little rough, like she’s been fighting fall allergies, and when she holds out a flyer, their fingers brush. The callus on her index finger—from decades of turning book pages, she’ll explain later—catches on the rough raised scar on his knuckle, and he jolts like he’s touched a live wire. He can smell lavender hand cream mixed with pine soap on her, sharp and warm under the pervasive scent of fried cod and draft beer.
They talk for 17 minutes, by his count. She teases him about the tarnished Forest Service belt buckle he still wears every day, says she always remembered how Ellie would gush about him leaving wild huckleberries on her pillow every anniversary. The words twist in his chest at first, hot and sharp with guilt, like he’s doing something wrong just standing this close to her, just laughing at her joke about the library’s copy of *A River Runs Through It* being checked out 42 times this summer alone. He keeps waiting for the revulsion to hit, the self-disgust he’s come to expect any time he notices a woman’s smile, the little voice in his head screaming that he’s betraying Ellie. It doesn’t come.
A group of rowdy 10-year-olds, grandkids of a VFW regular, dart past chasing a golden retriever, slamming into the picnic table behind Clay and sending a full pitcher of sweet iced tea tipping over the edge. Maren steps forward fast to avoid the splash, her shoulder pressing solidly against his chest for two full seconds, her hair brushing the side of his neck, heat seeping through the thin cotton of his work shirt. He doesn’t step back. She looks up at him, hazel eyes glinting in the neon light, and for a beat the fish fry noise fades entirely—no clinking bottles, no yelling kids, no fryer crackle, just the sound of both of them breathing.
She asks him to help map hiking routes for the series, says no one knows the forest better than he does. He almost says no, almost falls back on the line he’s used for every invitation for seven years: “Sorry, I’ve got plans with my granddaughter.” But the words stick in his throat. He remembers Ellie, only a week before she died, telling him he better not spend the rest of his life moping, better not turn down good things just because she wasn’t there to have them with him. Guilt is still there, faint, and he knows half the old regulars at the downtown diner will gossip about them for months if they see him out with her, but that feels small, suddenly, irrelevant. He says yes.
They exchange numbers before she leaves, her thumb brushing his again when she passes his phone back, and he tucks the bright orange flyer into his work shirt’s inside pocket, right over his heart. The fry cook yells his name from the food line, says they’ve got an extra piece of his favorite extra crispy cod. He taps the flyer through his shirt once, soft, and turns to walk toward the food line, a small, stupid smile tugging at the corner of his mouth that he hasn’t felt in seven years.
