Milo Rourke, 62, retired forensic entomologist, pulls into the VFW parking lot outside Port Clinton at 6:17 every Thursday, same time he’s showed up for the past two years. He spent 32 years crawling through crime scenes for the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, picking blowfly larvae off corpses to pin down time of death, and he’s got the bad left knee and permanent under-nail dirt to prove it. His wife Linda passed from ovarian cancer seven years prior, and he’s spent most of the time since sanding the hull of his 1987 Grady White, drinking cheap light beer, and avoiding any conversation that lasts longer than it takes to order a meal. The VFW fish fry is the only exception; no one here asks about his old job, no one pushes him to join the cornhole leagues, they just hand him a plate of breaded cod, coleslaw, and crinkle cut fries for twelve bucks, no questions asked.
He slides onto the end stool at the bar, nods at the bartender, and waits for his usual. When a hand sets the plate down in front of him, it’s not Jake the bartender’s calloused, tattooed hand. It’s a smaller hand, painted with chipped cherry red nail polish, a faint silver scar snaking across the wrist. He looks up, and his throat goes tight. He knows that face. Clara Hale, ex-wife of Richard Hale, the lead prosecutor he worked side by side with for 18 years, the guy who sent more violent offenders to prison than anyone else in the state, the guy everyone referred to as “Untouchable Rich” around the office. The last time he saw her was at Richard’s 60th birthday party three years prior, she’d been standing by the punch bowl wearing a silk dress, smiling like nothing was wrong. He’d only ever spoken to her twice, both times in passing at office holiday parties, and he’d always looked away fast, like staring too long would get him written up for insubordination.
She wipes the bar top next to his elbow with a rag, the edge of her navy VFW apron brushing his forearm. He can smell lavender hand lotion over the fried fish and beer fumes in the room, sharp and sweet, nothing like the lemon Pledge Linda used to use on the kitchen counters. “Thought that was you,” she says, leaning in just close enough that her hair brushes the edge of his shoulder when she nods at his plate. “Figured you’d show up here eventually. Richard always said you hated big cities, liked fishing more than you liked people.” He blinks, takes a long sip of his beer. He didn’t know she even knew his name, let alone what he liked. She laughs, soft, when he doesn’t answer, wiping a ring of condensation off the bar left by the guy who sat there before him. “Started working here two weeks ago. Left Rich last spring. Found out he’d been fucking his legal secretary for 12 years. Half the office knew. No one told me.”
His stomach twists. He’d heard the rumors, same as everyone else, but he’d never paid them much mind, kept his head down, focused on his larvae and his reports, stayed out of office drama. He feels like he’s as guilty as the rest of them, even if he never said a word either way. She doesn’t push him to answer, just grabs his empty beer bottle, nods at the cooler behind the bar. “You want another? On the house. Figured you owe me that much, at least, for not speaking up.” The tease is light, not mean, but he feels the heat creep up his neck anyway. He nods, and she turns to grab the beer, her jeans fitting tight across her hips, the edge of a tiny sunflower tattoo peeking out above the waistband at her lower back, something he never would have noticed back when she was the prosecutor’s wife, wearing pearls and hosting dinner parties for the office brass. When she sets the beer down, her fingers brush his for half a second, warm, calloused from whatever work she’s been doing since she left Rich, and he has to fight the urge to wrap his hand around hers.
The crowd thins out around 8, the old guys heading home to their wives, the younger veterans piling into pickup trucks to head to the bar downtown. He stays, sipping his beer, picking at the leftover coleslaw on his plate, while she wipes down the tables, mops the floor, locks the front door. She brings out a slice of peach pie from the kitchen, sets it down in front of him with a fork, pulls out the stool next to him, sits close enough that their knees brush under the bar. “I used to make this for Rich every Sunday,” she says, nudging the plate toward him. “He hated peaches. Said they were too sweet. I always made them anyway.” He takes a bite, it’s warm, the crust flaky, the peaches ripe, just sweet enough, and he realizes he hasn’t had homemade pie since Linda died.
She tells him she followed him here, looked up his address after she left Rich, remembered he said he was retiring to Lake Erie back at that holiday party four years prior. “I always liked you,” she says, looking him right in the eye, no hesitation, no embarrassment. “You never treated me like I was just Rich’s wife. You asked me about my tomato garden once, remember? No one else ever did that. Everyone just wanted to kiss his ass.” He’s torn, half of him screaming that this is wrong, that Rich was his colleague, that people will talk if they see them together, the other half screaming that he’s spent seven years alone, that he hasn’t felt this jittery, this alive, since he was a teenager asking a girl to prom. The guilt fades fast when he remembers how Rich used to talk about her behind her back, calling her a “pain in the ass” when she called him at work asking him to come home for dinner, like she was an inconvenience instead of his wife. He doesn’t owe Rich anything.
He asks her if she knows how to fish. She laughs, shakes her head, says she’s only ever been on a boat once, got sea sick, but she’s willing to try if he’s willing to teach her. He tells her he’s heading out on his Grady White Saturday at 7 a.m., if she wants to come, to bring a thick jacket and whatever beer she likes, no experience needed. She grins, grabs his phone off the bar, types her number in, her thumb brushing his when she hands it back. He walks her to her beat up Toyota Corolla in the parking lot, the cool October air nipping at his cheeks, and she leans in, kisses him soft on the lips for just a second, before she opens the car door. “Don’t be late,” she says, turning the key in the ignition. He stands there, leaning against the metal light pole, watching her taillights disappear down the two-lane road, the taste of peach pie and mint gum still on his lips, and shoves his hands in the pockets of his frayed flannel to hide the fact that they’re shaking.
