Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired high-voltage lineman, has not asked anyone for a favor since his wife Eileen died eight years prior. That stubborn streak is why he still climbs his ranch roof to clear gutters even after a 2017 pole fall left his left knee so wrecked he can barely walk for three days after. That’s also why he avoids local community events as a rule: every well-meaning neighbor and church widow tries to set him up with their cousin or bowling teammate, like his loneliness is a problem to be fixed with a pot roast and a round of mini golf. He only showed up to the Uniontown Fire Department’s annual chili cook-off because his 16-year-old granddaughter begged him to enter his award-winning venison chili, the one he makes with dark lager and a pinch of cocoa powder he swears no other cook in the county uses.
He’s leaning against a splintered pine picnic table, hood of his faded Steelers pullover pushed back, watching a group of teen volunteers haul a keg of root beer across the grass, when he spots her. Mara Egan, Eileen’s baby sister, 54, just moved back to town last month after a messy divorce from a Fort Lauderdale real estate broker. He’d only seen her at holidays growing up, when she’d roll into town in a beat-up VW Bug, piercings glinting, dragging a suitcase full of thrift store sweaters and half-finished pottery projects. Now she’s standing behind the baked goods table, flannel tied around her waist, jeans with a cobalt blue paint splotch high on the left thigh, a silver streak at her temple exactly the same shade as Eileen’s, only she wears her hair loose in soft waves instead of pulled back in the tight bun Eileen favored. She’s arranging pecan pies on a folding table, humming an old Dolly Parton track under her breath, and Ronan’s throat goes dry. He’d always told himself Mara was off limits, even when she’d lean across the Thanksgiving dinner table to ask him for stories about climbing poles in the middle of ice storms, even when she’d slip him an extra slice of pie when Eileen wasn’t looking. Wanting her felt like a betrayal, like he was stealing something from the woman he’d promised to love forever.
He decides to grab a bottle of water to steady his nerves, steps up to the snack table at the same time she does, both reaching for the same stack of paper napkins. Their knuckles brush, and he feels the rough callus on her index finger, the same one she got when she was 19 and threw a pottery wheel too hard, sending a lump of wet clay flying into the edge of the table. She laughs, warm and throaty, and pulls her hand back slow, like she doesn’t want to break the contact. “Still as fast as you were when you caught me sneaking out of your house to go to that Rage Against the Machine show in 2002,” she says, grinning. He huffs a laugh, shakes his head. “Still owe me for lying to Eileen about where you went. Told her you were staying late at the library studying for midterms. She believed me, too.”
They end up talking for 20 minutes, leaning against the side of a dented red fire truck, close enough that he can smell the vanilla lotion she’s wearing and the cinnamon stick tucked in the pocket of her flannel. She dips a saltine into his chili pot, takes a bite, closes her eyes and moans soft, says it’s just as good as she remembered, that she used to sneak tupperwares of it out of his fridge when she visited for spring break in college. He teases her about the time she dyed Eileen’s hair neon pink when they were teens, and she snorts, shoves his arm playfully, her palm warm through the thin fabric of his hoodie. Half of him is disgusted with how easy it is to talk to her, how badly he wants to reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, like he’s cheating on the memory of the woman he spent 34 years married to. The other half is screaming that he hasn’t felt this light, this alive, since the last time Eileen laughed at one of his dumb work stories.
The sky opens up all of a sudden, cold October rain pouring down so hard it stings the back of his neck. Everyone yells, grabs armfuls of food and coolers, runs for the awning over the fire station bay. Ronan grabs Mara’s forearm without thinking, pulls her close to him so a kid carrying a stack of pies doesn’t barrel into her, his calloused work hand wrapped tight around her soft skin. She doesn’t pull away, just presses her shoulder to his, their sides flush, rain soaking the hem of his hoodie and the ends of her hair. She tilts her head up to look at him, her eyes bright, no hesitation, no quick look away, and says quiet enough only he can hear over the drumming of the rain on the fire truck roof, “Eileen told me, right before she died. If you ever found someone again, she wanted it to be someone who knew you. Knew all your dumb stories, the way you leave your socks on the couch, the way you sing off key to Johnny Cash in the shower. She said it was okay. It was always okay.” Ronan feels the tight knot of guilt he’s been carrying in his chest for eight years melt away like ice in the sun. He admits, quiet, that he’s thought about her every time she visited, every time she sent him a postcard from Florida, every time he saw a piece of hand-thrown pottery at the county fair and wondered if she made it. He just never thought he was allowed to have it.
The rain slows to a drizzle ten minutes later, and they help the rest of the volunteers carry the remaining pies inside the station bay. He holds the heavy roll-up door open for her, and she brushes a wet oak leaf off the shoulder of his hoodie as she walks past, her fingers lingering on the fabric for half a second longer than they need to. He asks her if she wants to get coffee at the little diner downtown after the cook-off, the one with the apple fritters she used to beg Eileen to buy her when she was a kid. She grins, nods, tucks a strand of wet hair behind her ear, and says she’d like that a lot. Ronan shifts his weight on his bad knee, and realizes it doesn’t throb half as bad as it did an hour earlier.
