Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired wildland firefighter crew boss, had been dragged to the Boise Fire Department annual chili cookoff against his better judgment. His old crewmate Jake had showed up at his garage at 10 a.m. with a six pack of Pabst and a threat to hide all his 1978 Ford fire engine parts if he didn’t come. Ronan had spent the first 45 minutes hovering by the beer tent, avoiding eye contact with anyone who might recognize him, picking at a paper bowl of chili so spicy it made his eyes water. He’d avoided these events for eight years, ever since his wife Linda died of breast cancer, and longer still before that, avoiding anyone who’d been on the 2001 Pine Ridge fire, the one that took his crew leader, Manny Reyes.
He was just debating slipping out to his truck when a woman stepped in front of him, holding a tray of cornbread muffins still steaming through the paper wrappers. Marisol Reyes. He’d recognize that streak of silver through her dark curly hair anywhere, the way she tilted her chin when she smiled, the same way Manny used to when he was about to tease someone for messing up a fire line. She didn’t look 58, not really, laugh lines fanning out from the corners of her dark eyes, a smudge of chili powder on her left cheekbone. “Thought that was you hiding over here,” she said, and her voice was lower than he remembered, warm, like the crackle of a campfire after a long day on the line. She held out a muffin, and when he took it, their fingers brushed, his calloused from wrenching on engine parts, hers soft, dotted with tiny calluses from the plant nursery she ran out of her backyard.
He froze for half a second, ready to mumble an excuse and leave, but she didn’t give him the pitying look everyone else did, didn’t mention Manny right away, didn’t ask how he was doing like the answer was some sort of performance he owed her. She just leaned against the wooden table next to him, their shoulders no more than an inch apart, and complained about the judge who’d knocked points off her chili for having “too much cumin,” like it was the worst injustice anyone had ever suffered on a fall Saturday. He could smell lavender perfume mixed with the cinnamon in her chili and the faint pine scent of the hand soap she used, and every time someone squeezed past the crowded tent, their arms brushed, the rough denim of her jacket scraping lightly against his flannel sleeve.
The guilt hit him halfway through her story about a customer who’d tried to return a half-dead succulent two months after buying it. He’d spent 22 years telling himself he had no right to even talk to her, not when he’d been 10 feet away from Manny when the tree fell, not when he’d carried his body off the mountain, not when he’d stood in the front row of his funeral and lied to her that Manny didn’t suffer. He wanted to step back, to walk away, to go back to his garage where no one made him feel like he was betraying two people he’d loved, but he couldn’t make his feet move. She was looking at him like she knew exactly what he was thinking, like she’d been waiting 22 years to tell him he was wrong.
When she finally brought up the fire, it wasn’t what he expected. “Manny talked about you all the time,” she said, shifting so she was facing him, their knees almost touching under the table. “Said you were the best crew member he ever had, that if anyone could have gotten him out, it would have been you. I never blamed you, Ronan. Not for a second.” The 50/50 raffle was called right then, and they both looked up when their ticket numbers were called, back to back, they’d bought them 10 minutes apart without realizing it. They split the $1240 prize, and when she handed him his half, she held onto his wrist for three full beats, her thumb brushing the scar he’d gotten on that same Pine Ridge fire, long and pale across his inner arm. “I want to use my half for parts for that 1978 engine you’re restoring,” she said, before he could say anything. “Manny used to talk about that truck every night for a year after they retired it. Said it was the only rig that never let him down.”
He asked her to come see the truck the next morning before he could overthink it, and she said yes, no hesitation, grinning so wide the crinkles at her eyes deepened. They walked out of the tent together as the sun dipped below the Boise foothills, painting the sky pink and tangerine, the sound of the raffle announcer fading behind them. She stopped on the sidewalk, reached up to brush a fleck of chili powder off his jaw, her fingers warm against his skin, and he didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, didn’t feel the weight of the guilt he’d carried for half his life for the first time he could remember. A group of kids ran past, chasing a stray dog with a crumpled paper plate of chili clamped in its mouth, and she laughed, leaning into his side for half a second before she stepped back to unlock her beat-up Subaru. She tossed him her phone so he could put his number in, the case dotted with tiny pressed wildflowers she’d picked from her nursery beds. He typed his number in slowly, his thumb brushing the edge of the case, and hit save.
