Elroy Voss, 62, spent 31 years teaching high school woodshop before he retired, and the only thing he hated more than last-minute schedule changes was being roped into community events. His late wife Marnie had volunteered him for the harvest fair woodworking demo booth three months before her lung cancer diagnosis, and he’d showed up every year since out of some half-baked sense of obligation, even if he spent most of the time glowering at passersby who asked if he could make them a custom birdhouse for $20. The air reeked of fried Oreos and diesel from the fairground’s generator, and the country cover band playing near the beer tent was off-key enough to make his fillings ache. He was running a dado cut on a piece of black walnut for a custom cutting board when a shadow fell over his workbench.
He looked up. Lila Marquez, 48, the county extension agent who’d been leaving native plant saplings on his front porch for six months straight, was leaning on the edge of the booth, her work boots caked in mud, flannel sleeves rolled up to show forearms dusted with freckles and a thin scar running across her left wrist from a chainsaw accident she’d mentioned once at the post office. He’d gone out of his way to avoid her, partially because he hated the saplings taking up space on his porch that he used for stacking rough-cut lumber, mostly because every time he saw her, his chest felt tight in a way he hadn’t felt since he was 16 and asked Marnie to prom. He’d told himself it was disrespectful, that a widower of seven years had no business noticing a woman 14 years his junior, that he was too old for that kind of nonsense.
“Thought I’d find you here hiding from my workshop reminders,” she said, grinning, and her voice was warm, roughened from years of working outside in the wind. She leaned in a little closer, and he caught the scent of pine sap and lavender hand salve over the fair’s grease and sawdust. His grip on the router slipped, and before the spinning bit could nick his left thumb, her hand wrapped around his wrist, calloused palm firm against his skin, pulling his hand back an inch. “Easy there. Those things will take a finger off faster than a kid in your shop with a dull chisel.”
He pulled his wrist back slowly, more flustered than he’d been in decades, and fumbled for his safety glasses, knocking a pack of 80-grit sandpaper off the bench. “I know how to use a router,” he said, gruffer than he meant to. She laughed, not the patronizing chuckle most people gave him when he was grumpy, the bright, unapologetic kind that made the corner of her eyes crinkle. She picked up the sandpaper, handed it to him, and their fingers brushed. Her skin was cool from holding a can of peach iced tea, and he felt a jolt run up his arm that had nothing to do with the router’s electric motor.
They talked for 20 minutes, while fairgoers wandered past, kids screaming on the Tilt-A-Whirl in the background. He learned she’d been friends with Marnie the last year of her life, that Marnie used to bring her peach jam from the tree in their backyard when she first moved to town, that Marnie had told her Elroy was the only person within 50 miles who knew how to fix a broken fence post and make a pie crust that didn’t taste like cardboard. He’d had no idea. He’d spent so much time after Marnie died shutting everyone out, he’d missed half the things she’d done in her last few months, half the people she’d cared about. He felt a twist of guilt in his gut, half for avoiding Lila, half for wasting seven years of his life holed up in his workshop eating frozen dinners and watching old John Wayne movies.
The first firework went off just as he was about to ask her more about Marnie’s jam, a burst of red that lit up the whole fairground, and the crowd around them cheered, surging toward the open field at the end of the grounds. Lila grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers through his, and pulled him along with the crowd, her palm warm against his, no hesitation. He didn’t pull away. They found a spot at the edge of the field, far enough from the crowd that they didn’t have to yell over the screaming kids, and she stood close enough that her hip pressed against his, the rough fabric of her work jeans rubbing against his. The fireworks painted her face pink and blue and gold, and when she looked up at him, he didn’t look away.
“Marnie told me if you ever stopped moping long enough to talk to me, I should drag you up to the old growth stand off Forest Road 17,” she said, quiet enough only he could hear over the thrum of the fireworks. “Said you’d love the cedar trees up there, that you’ve been wanting to get a piece of old growth for a custom dining table for years. She also said if I didn’t make you get out of the house at least once a month, she’d haunt me from the grave.”
Elroy laughed, a real, deep laugh he hadn’t felt bubble up in years, and the last of the guilt he’d been carrying around faded, like Marnie was right there, teasing him for being an idiot. He’d spent seven years thinking being loyal meant shutting the world out, but he realized now that was the last thing she would’ve wanted.
When the last firework faded, the crowd started dispersing, the smell of smoke hanging in the cool night air. He walked her to her beat-up 2008 Ford pickup, parked at the edge of the fairground, and she reached into the passenger seat, pulled out a crinkly foil packet of western red cedar seeds, handed it to him. “You can plant them by Marnie’s peach tree if you want,” she said, and she leaned up, kissed his cheek, soft and quick, before she climbed into the truck. “I’ll pick you up Saturday at 8. Wear hiking boots, not those steel-toe work boots you wear everywhere that weigh 10 pounds each.”
He stood there in the gravel parking lot, watching her taillights turn down the county road, the seed packet warm in his palm. He didn’t make a mental note to cancel, didn’t tell himself he should stick to his usual Saturday routine of sanding lumber and eating cold meatloaf for lunch. He tucked the seed packet into the front pocket of his frayed work flannel, already calculating how much extra water he would need to keep the saplings alive through the coming dry summer.
