Rafe Ortega, 58, retired wildland fire crew boss, had avoided the downtown Saturday farmers market for three straight months before that July afternoon. He’d spent the four years since his wife Maria died clinging to the quiet, unspoken “grieving widower” label the town of Silverton had wrapped around him like a frayed wool blanket, turning down invites to cookouts, skipping poker nights, even ducking behind pickup trucks when he saw friendly neighbors he didn’t have the energy to make small talk with. His left forearm bore a thick, silvery scar from the 2019 Beachie Creek Fire that had taken his old cabin, and the calluses on his palms were still thick from the year he spent rebuilding it alone, hauling cinder blocks and hammering floor joists before dawn to keep his mind too busy to wander.
The air smelled like cut clover and roasted elote from the food truck parked at the end of the row when he rounded the corner by the hot sauce booth, a paper bag of white peaches slung over his shoulder. He almost kept walking, but a low, rough voice called his name, and he froze. Lila Marquez, 42, Maria’s second cousin who’d moved back to town three months prior after her divorce, leaned against the rough pine edge of the booth, a streak of silver cutting through her dark wavy hair, freckles dark across her nose from hours working in the sun. She held up a small plastic sample cup, the bright orange liquid inside sloshing a little, and quirked an eyebrow. He hadn’t spoken to her more than twice in the last decade, but he found himself walking toward her anyway, his boots scuffing the dusty asphalt.
She held the cup out, and when he reached for it, their fingers brushed. The jolt that ran up his arm was so sharp he almost dropped the cup, and he immediately felt a twist of hot, sharp guilt in his gut, like he’d been caught doing something wrong. He tipped the sample into his mouth, and the habanero heat hit him hard enough to make his eyes water, and he coughed, doubling over a little. She laughed, a loud, unselfconscious sound, and handed him a paper towel, their fingers brushing again when he took it. He noticed her nails were chipped, stained with red food dye from the pepper mash she stirred every morning, and she was wearing a cutoff gray flannel shirt rolled to the elbows, a faint scar curling around her right wrist from a motorcycle crash she’d had when she was 19.
He leaned back against the booth, swiping the towel across his mouth, and tried not to focus on how close she was standing, the faint smell of coconut sunscreen and smoked chili clinging to her shirt. Most people in town kept a respectful three feet of distance from him, like his grief was contagious, but Lila leaned in, her shoulder almost touching his, when she asked how the new stone patio he’d built behind his cabin was holding up. He blinked, surprised; he’d mentioned that patio once, at Maria’s funeral, to a group of people who’d nodded politely and immediately changed the subject. She told him she’d hiked the trail behind his property a handful of times in the last month, seen the fire pit he’d stacked from river rock at the edge of the patio, asked if he’d ever actually used it. He shook his head, and she clicked her tongue, teasing him for wasting a perfectly good spot to watch the sunset.
The noise of the market faded into a low hum for a minute, and he realized he hadn’t thought about Maria like a weight, like something he had to carry and apologize for, in almost 10 minutes. He’d just been… talking. Lila pushed off the edge of the booth, and said she had a full bottle of the habanero mango sauce reserved for him, but she’d left it in her pickup parked around the corner, asked if he wanted to walk with her to grab it. He hesitated for half a second, the old guilt flaring up again, the voice in his head saying he shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be enjoying talking to a woman who wasn’t Maria, but he nodded anyway.
They walked side by side down the sidewalk, their shoulders brushing every few steps, the sun warm on the back of his neck. When they got to her beat-up blue Ford Ranger, she climbed up into the bed to reach the box of sauce bottles, her shirt riding up a little to show a wild poppy tattoo on her hip, the exact same design Maria had gotten on her 40th birthday. He froze, the guilt hitting him so hard he almost turned to leave, but she hopped down a second later, holding out the frosted glass bottle, and smiled. “Maria told me, two months before she died, that if I ever moved back to town, I had to kick your ass into stopping with the whole lone wolf act,” she said, and he blinked, stunned. “Said you’d spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for her being gone if someone didn’t call you out on it.”
The tight knot in his chest loosened all at once, and he laughed, a rough, rusty sound he hadn’t heard come out of his own mouth in years. He took the bottle from her, and this time, he didn’t pull his hand away when their fingers lingered, the rough calluses on her palm matching his. She asked if he wanted to bring the peaches and the sauce back to his cabin later, she’d pick up carnitas tacos from the food truck on the way, they could test that fire pit and watch the sunset. He nodded, no hesitation this time, no voice in his head screaming that he was doing something wrong. He watched her walk back toward the market, the silver streak in her hair catching the golden late afternoon sun, and tucked the sauce bottle into his canvas tote next to the peaches, already counting the bottles of cold IPA he had stacked in his cabin fridge.
