He’d just lifted the beer to his lips when someone slid onto the stool two spots down, and his grip tightened on the glass. He’d know that silver-streaked auburn hair anywhere, the faint scar snaking across her left wrist from the time she’d crashed his four-wheeler back in 1987, when she was 21 and dumb enough to think she could drive it through a mud pit without shifting into four-wheel drive. Mara. Ellie’s little sister. The woman he’d avoided for 32 years, ever since she’d joked at his wedding that he’d probably forget their first anniversary before the reception ended. He’d forgotten it, of course, had been out on a storm call for 14 hours, and she’d teased him about it every family gathering for a decade after. He’d walked out of Christmas dinner in 2011 when she’d joked he couldn’t keep a houseplant alive, let alone a marriage, and he hadn’t spoken to her since.
He tensed, ready to flag the bartender for his tab and leave, when she turned her head and met his eye, no surprise on her face, like she’d known he was there the whole time. Her green eyes had the same flecks of gold as Ellie’s, but sharper, less soft, crinkled at the corners like she spent half her time laughing. The bartender slid a glass of bourbon across the bar to her, and Cole reached for his beer at the exact same moment, their knuckles brushing for half a second. He felt the rough callus on her index finger, the same one she’d had since she was a teen throwing pots in the high school art room, and her skin was warmer than he expected, the scent of her lavender and pine soap drifting over to him, cutting through the bar’s beer and cigarette smoke.
He froze, half-embarrassed, half-annoyed at the jolt that ran up his arm, disgusted at himself for even noticing. This was Mara. The woman he’d blamed for every time he’d felt like he wasn’t good enough for Ellie, the mirror that held up all his flaws when he’d rather pretend they didn’t exist. He opened his mouth to mumble a greeting and leave, but she spoke first, her voice low and rough, like she’d spent the day yelling over the rally’s loudspeakers. “Heard you fixed the generator at 2 a.m. when the crew was ready to pack it in. Still the only guy within 30 miles who can MacGyver anything with a scrap of metal and a bad attitude.”
The words caught him off guard. No one had mentioned that generator fix, had just thanked him for the ice runs and the table hauling. He nodded, shifting in his seat, and before he knew it, she’d moved to the stool right next to him, her knee almost brushing his under the bar, the denim of her jeans rough against the frayed cuff of his work pants. She told him she’d moved back to town two weeks prior, finalizing her divorce from a lawyer in Columbus who’d hated that she spent 40 hours a week covered in clay, thought a woman her age should have a “respectable” office job. She was leasing the old feed store on Main Street to open a pottery studio, had already fixed the front porch step herself, even though she’d hammered her thumb twice doing it.
They talked for two hours, the beer and bourbon going down easy, the crowd in the bar thinning out as the rally wrapped up. He told her he still had the lopsided ceramic mug she’d made him for his 30th birthday, the one with a tiny lightning bolt carved into the side, the one he’d told her he’d thrown in the trash after that 2011 Christmas fight. He used it every morning for coffee, he said, even though the handle was too small for his big hands, even though it leaked a little if he filled it too full. She laughed, a loud, throaty sound that made his chest feel light, and leaned in, her hand resting on his forearm for three full seconds, the pressure warm and solid through his worn flannel shirt, the hum of the jukebox fading out for a beat.
He didn’t feel angry anymore, he realized. He’d never been mad at her, not really. He’d been mad at himself for all the times he’d let Ellie down, for forgetting anniversaries, for missing her birthday dinner when a storm took out 10 power lines, for not noticing she was sick until it was too late. Mara had just been the one brave enough to say the things he was already thinking about himself. The thrill of sitting next to her, of knowing everyone in town would talk if they saw them leave together, tangled up with the quiet, warm feeling that someone finally saw him, not just as Ellie’s husband, the retired lineman, the guy who fixed things, but as Cole, the guy who still cried when Johnny Cash sang “Hurt,” the guy who kept a lopsided mug for 28 years even when he pretended he hated it.
When they walked out of the bar an hour later, the sun was dipping below the endless stretch of cornfields, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and soft pink, the air still warm enough that he didn’t need his jacket. She stopped to kick a loose chunk of asphalt off the sidewalk, her shoulder brushing his, and he didn’t move away. He reached out slow, like he was handling a live wire he wasn’t sure was dead, and tucked a stray strand of silver-streaked hair behind her ear.
