Roland Voss, 58, retired wildland fire crew boss, had only shown up to the Bend 4th of July block party because his 12-year-old neighbor had begged for three straight weeks to park his fully restored 1987 Type 3 fire truck at the entrance. He’d spent six years sanding, rewiring, and repainting the rig after picking it up at a forest service auction, had even stitched the old “Oregon District 7” patch back onto the door himself, so he’d caved, even though he’d avoided every community event since his wife Ellie passed seven years prior. He figured he’d stay an hour, max, let the kids climb on the bumper and take photos, then sneak back to his garage to finish rebuilding a 1990s Pulaski axe he’d picked up at a yard sale.
The air reeked of charcoal, cheap domestic beer, and cut alfalfa from the field at the end of the block, and a cover band was butchering a John Mellencamp track so loud his boots vibrated against the asphalt. He was halfway through a lukewarm can of Coors, debating if he could slip out without the neighbor kid noticing, when a woman leaned around the side of the fire truck, holding two paper plates stacked high with cherry pie.
He recognized her before she spoke. Lila, Ellie’s youngest cousin, the one who’d shown up to their wedding in 1991 with a lip ring and a leather jacket, who’d gotten bit by Ellie’s golden retriever mid-reception and laughed so hard she’d snort-laughed seltzer out her nose. She’d moved to Ketchikan to work as a fishing guide right after that, and he hadn’t seen her in 32 years. Her auburn hair had streaks of silver at the temples now, pulled back in a messy braid, and the scar on her left wrist from that dog bite was still faint, visible just above the cuff of her flannel shirt rolled to the elbow.
“Ellie always said you’d hide by the truck at any party instead of talking to people,” she said, holding out one of the plates. Her fingers brushed his when he took it, calloused from hauling fishing nets and tying knots, and he flinched like he’d touched a live wire. He felt a hot twist of guilt in his gut first, sharp and familiar—how dare he notice how her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes, how her perfume smelled like pine and blackberry, when he’d spent seven years wearing Ellie’s old flannel shirts to bed and refusing to let anyone set him up on dates.
She didn’t step back after handing him the pie, stayed close enough that her shoulder pressed against his bicep when she leaned around him to watch a group of kids chase each other with water guns. The scarring on his arms from the 2018 Cascadia fire was raised and pale, and he almost pulled away, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t even glance at the marks like most people did, like they were a sign of something broken instead of just a job he’d loved.
“Moved back three months ago,” she said, raising her voice a little over the band. “Got sick of the rain in Alaska. Bought that little cottage on the edge of town, the one with the blueberry bushes out front. Ellie and I used to pick berries there when we were kids, did she ever tell you that?”
He nodded, mouth full of pie, too flustered to talk. The crust was buttery, the cherries tart enough to make his eyes water, exactly how Ellie used to make it. He’d forgotten what it felt like to talk to someone who didn’t treat him like a glass ornament that would shatter if they so much as mentioned his wife’s name. Lila told him about running fishing charters for rich tourists who couldn’t tell a salmon from a trout, about the time a bear stole her cooler of beer off her dock, and he found himself laughing, loud enough that a couple people glanced over at them, something he hadn’t done in years.
He kept waiting for the guilt to come back, for that voice in his head to tell him he was being disrespectful, that he should go home and be alone like he was supposed to. But it didn’t come, not even when she tilted her head up to look at him, her dark eyes glinting in the golden hour light, and he realized she was standing so close he could count the freckles across her nose. He’d spent so long convincing himself that any kind of desire was wrong, that he was supposed to grieve forever, that he’d forgotten what it felt like to want someone to stay.
The first firework went off just as he was working up the nerve to say something, a burst of red that lit up the sky above the pine trees, and the crowd around them cheered. He stepped back, mumbled a stupid excuse about needing to get the truck ready to leave, ready to run like he always did, but she caught his wrist before he could turn away. Her hand was warm, firm, and she didn’t let go when he tensed up.
“Stop punishing yourself,” she said, quiet enough that only he could hear it, even over the noise. “Ellie used to call me every year and complain that you were working too hard, that you never took time to have fun. She’d kick your ass if she saw you holed up in that garage alone every night, you know that.”
It felt like someone had knocked the wind out of him. He’d spent so long telling himself that staying alone was what he owed Ellie, that he’d never stopped to think she would have wanted him to be happy. He stared down at her, at the scar on her wrist, at the way she was holding his wrist like she knew he was scared to stay, and for the first time in seven years, he didn’t want to run.
“Got a spot up on the ridge outside town,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended. “You can see all the fireworks from the small towns for 20 miles. Wanna come?”
She grinned, that same snort-laugh he remembered from the wedding, and squeezed his wrist before letting go. “Only if you let me bring the rest of the pie. I made three, and I’m not wasting it on the guy from the hardware store who keeps hitting on me.”
An hour later, they were sitting on the tailgate of the fire truck, parked at the overlook, the rest of the cherry pie between them, and the sky was lit up with bursts of pink and blue and green from a dozen different small town displays. She was leaning against his side, her shoulder pressed to his, and when she reached for a bite of pie, her hair fell across his forearm, soft and smelling like pine. He didn’t flinch this time, didn’t feel that twist of guilt, just felt warm, like the sun was still on his skin even though it was dark out.
She pulled a crumb of pie crust off his jaw, and licked it off her thumb, her eyes holding his the whole time.
