Rafe Marquez, 52, makes his living rebuilding vintage outboard motors out of a rusted converted boathouse on the northern edge of Lake Lanier, Georgia. He’s avoided most social gatherings since his wife left him for a real estate broker in Tampa eight years prior, swears the quiet of the lake at dawn beats any dinner party or neighborhood cookout he’s ever been invited to. The only exception is the monthly county farmers’ market, where he drives his beat-up 1998 Ford F-150 into town to stock up on freestone peaches and the dense, crusty sourdough the local Mennonite women sell from a wooden stand at the far end of the parking lot.
Mid-July humidity hangs so thick in the air he can taste it, his gray work flannel sleeves rolled tight to his elbows, grease crusted under his fingernails, a faded tattoo of a 1957 Evinrude peeking out from under the frayed cuff. He reaches for a flat of ripe peaches at the same time as another hand, their knuckles brushing, the skin soft and warm against his calloused knuckles. He pulls back fast, ready to mumble an apology, and freezes when he meets her eyes.
It’s Elara Voss, his ex-wife’s younger half-sister. He’d only seen her a handful of times over the years, the first at his wedding 22 years prior, when she was 19, barefoot in a tie-dye sundress, sneaking beer from the cooler behind the caterer’s tent. He’d tried not to stare back then, had told himself it was just newlywed jitters, that the line between family and anything else was too thick to cross even in his own head. She’s 44 now, streaks of honey blonde in her dark brown hair, a small silver hoop through her left nostril, wearing cutoff jean shorts and a faded Rolling Stones tee, flip flops slapping against the hot asphalt.
She grins, and the dimple in her left cheek is exactly the same as he remembers. “You still grab the peaches with the most fuzz, right? I swear you used to eat one before you even paid for them at the lake cookouts.”
He’s flustered, runs a hand over the short gray stubble on his jaw. He’d thought no one had ever noticed that stupid little habit. “Yeah, they’re sweeter. What are you doing back here? Last I heard you were working ER in Atlanta.”
“Quit three weeks ago. Burnout. Kid just started college in Athens, so I rented that little cottage up on the east cove. Figured I’d take a few months to breathe before I figure out what’s next.” She falls into step next to him as he walks toward the sourdough stand, her shoulder brushing his every few steps, the scent of coconut sunscreen and peppermint gum clinging to her. He can hear the catch in her laugh when he cracks a dumb joke about how the Mennonite sourdough is so dense you could use it as a boat anchor if you left it out in the rain.
A stupid, squirming discomfort twists in his gut the whole time they talk. He’s spent eight years training himself to not want anyone, to stick to his routine of working on motors, drinking cheap beer on his dock at sunset, only talking to the occasional fisherman who drops off a broken motor for repair. On top of that, she’s his ex’s sister. Every unspoken family rule he ever learned says this is wrong, that even thinking about her in any way that isn’t purely platonic is a betrayal, even if he and his ex haven’t spoken in seven years, even if neither of them have been invited to a family holiday dinner in half a decade. He alternates between leaning in when she talks, hungry for the sound of her voice, and leaning back, angry at himself for even entertaining the thought that this could be anything but a quick, awkward chat.
She stops at the lemonade food truck at the edge of the market, buys two cups, hands him one. The plastic is cold against his sweaty palm, condensation dripping down his wrist. They sit on a splintered pine bench off to the side, a bluegrass band playing off-key in the background, kids screaming as they chase each other with water guns. A drop of lemonade dribbles down her chin, she dabs it off with the back of her hand, and his eyes linger on her mouth for half a second too long before he looks away.
She leans in a little, their knees touching under the bench, the heat of her leg seeping through his thick work jeans. He doesn’t move away. “I asked three different people if you were single before I came to the market today. I wasn’t gonna say anything if you weren’t.”
He blinks, for a second he thinks he misheard her over the music. “You did?”
“Always thought you were too good for my sister, for the record. She never appreciated how you’d stay up all night fixing her car for free, how you’d drive two hours to pick her up from work when it snowed. I noticed.” She’s looking him dead in the eye, no hesitation, no embarrassment, and his chest feels tight, like someone’s reached in and squeezed his heart. He’s spent eight years thinking he was invisible, that no one cared about the little things he did, the parts of him that weren’t just the guy who fixed boat motors cheap.
He tells her the truth, that he’s thought about her too, off and on, for years, but never said anything because it felt like crossing a line he wasn’t supposed to touch. She laughs, soft, leans in a little closer, he can smell the lemon sugar on her breath. “The only people who get to make the rules for us are us. The rest of the family hasn’t talked to either of us in years anyway. Who cares what they’d think?”
He walks her to her beat-up Subaru Outback a few minutes later, she tosses her paper bag of produce in the back seat, turns to him, holds out a perfectly fuzzy peach she’d snuck from her flat. “Bring that 1962 Johnson you were always bragging about up to the cove by my cottage this weekend. I got a cooler of beer, and the sunset up there is way better than the one off your dock. No strings attached, unless you want there to be.”
He nods, tucks the peach in the cooler next to his sourdough and his own flat of peaches. He stands in the parking lot and watches her pull out, waves when she honks the horn as she turns onto the main road. He takes a bite of the peach, sweet juice running down his chin, and doesn’t wipe it off, just leans against the bed of his truck and smiles at the sun glinting off the asphalt.
