Cole Henderson, 58, retired USFS forest ranger with a scar splitting his left knuckle from a 2019 chainsaw mishap and a habit of leaving social events 20 minutes early to avoid small talk, grabbed his catfish plate and scanned the VFW patio for an empty table. He’d moved to Phoenix 10 months prior to be 10 minutes from his granddaughter’s middle school, and he still hated the thick, oven-hot air that stuck to the back of his neck even at 7PM, the way the asphalt radiated heat hours after the sun dipped below the cactus line. The catfish was crispy, salt crusted at the edges, the coleslaw cloyingly sweet the way he hated, but he came every week anyway, if only to get out of the empty ranch house he still hadn’t fully unpacked. He’d avoided the bake sale table by the door for three straight weekends, knew the woman running it would corner him if he got too close, that her smile was too bright, her teasing too sharp for the fog he’d carried around since his wife Linda died seven years prior.
He slid into a booth far from the crowd, poured extra hot sauce on his coleslaw to cut the sweetness, and was halfway through his first bite of catfish when the bench across from him creaked. He looked up, and there she was. Maren, 54, whose son had done two tours in Afghanistan, whose chocolate chip cookies sold out 10 minutes after the fish fry started every week, slid into the seat across from him, her denim-clad knee brushing his under the table so lightly he almost thought he imagined it. She smelled like lavender and vanilla frosting, her auburn braid slung over one shoulder, chipped pale pink nail polish tapping a tattered paperback against the sticky Formica tabletop. The jukebox in the corner hummed an old George Strait track, someone laughed loud enough to carry from the beer pong table by the bar, and Cole’s first instinct was to mumble an excuse about an early morning and bolt.
“Your granddaughter told me you were mad about the ban,” Maren said, her voice low enough that only he could hear. She leaned forward a little, her elbow brushing his on the table when she reached to push the book closer, and Cole could see the faint laugh lines fanning out from her hazel eyes, the smudge of flour on her left cheek. He’d spent seven years convincing himself any flicker of interest in another woman was a betrayal, that he owed Linda the rest of his life spent alone, that wanting anything else was disgusting, selfish. He stared at the book, then at her hand resting an inch from his on the table, and he couldn’t remember the last time someone had paid that much attention to the things he cared about, that wasn’t his granddaughter or his old ranger buddy calling once a month to check in from Oregon.
Their hands brushed when he reached for the book, her palm warm and calloused at the fingertips from years of kneading bread and hauling boxes of donated books for the library, and he didn’t pull away. He held her gaze for three full seconds, longer than he’d held anyone’s gaze that wasn’t family in years, and she didn’t look away either, a small, teasing smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Linda used to read this to me when we got stuck in the tent,” he said, his voice rougher than he meant it to be. He expected the familiar twist of guilt in his chest, the sharp ache he’d grown used to whenever he thought about letting someone new in, but it didn’t come. He thought of Linda laughing at him for being such a stubborn ass, for hiding away in his house for seven years only leaving to go to fish fries and his granddaughter’s soccer games, and he felt lighter than he had in years.
Maren nodded, pulled a foil-wrapped chocolate chip cookie out of her apron pocket and slid it across the table to him, still warm. “My husband had a copy of that same book hidden in his work truck,” she said, and Cole remembered hearing she’d been widowed 11 years prior, her husband killed in a highway construction accident. “Said it was the only thing that got him through night shifts when it was snowing so bad he couldn’t feel his toes.” She shifted a little closer, her knee pressing firmer against his under the table, no longer accidental, and the air between them felt thick, warm, not the heavy Phoenix heat but something softer, something he’d thought he’d never feel again.
He flipped open the book, and a pressed daisy fell out, the same kind Linda used to tuck behind her ear on camping trips when they hiked to alpine meadows in the Cascades. He looked up at Maren, and she was already smiling, like she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Found that in the copy I picked up at the thrift store,” she said. “Figured it belonged with someone who’d appreciate it more than the school board ever would.”
Cole picked up the daisy, turned it over between his calloused fingers, then looked back at her. He didn’t make an excuse to leave early that night. He stayed until the fish fry closed down, until the staff were stacking chairs on the tables, until the jukebox cut off for the night and the only lights left were the neon VFW sign above the door. He walked her to her beat-up Ford truck in the parking lot, the dry desert air cool now against his cheeks, and when she leaned in to hug him goodbye, he rested his hand on the small of her back, didn’t let go as fast as he should have. She slipped a piece of paper with her phone number scrawled on it in blue ink into the front of his book before she climbed into her truck, winked, and said she’d save him two cookies next weekend if he promised not to hide from her at the door.
He got in his own truck, set the book on the passenger seat next to his frayed VFW hat, and pulled out of the parking lot, the pressed daisy tucked into the sun visor where he could see it. He didn’t feel guilty. He didn’t feel like he was betraying anyone. He turned on the radio, and the same George Strait track came on, and he smiled, for the first time in years without feeling like he had to apologize for it.
