Rafe Sorrento, 62, spent 34 years as a commercial salmon fisherman out of Coos Bay before he sold his quota after his wife Ellie died three years prior. His biggest flaw, if you asked his only sister, was that he’d rather rot alone than admit he needed anything heavier than a grocery bag carried for him. He’d shown up to the annual fire department chili cookoff only because his old fishing buddy, now the volunteer fire chief, had showed up on his porch at 8 a.m. holding a six pack of his favorite IPA and threatened to haul his half-restored troller to the junkyard if he didn’t stop moping.
The air reeked of smoked paprika, burnt sausage, and cheap beer, kids screaming as they chased each other around the fire truck parked at the edge of the community park. Rafe had already turned down three pitying questions about how he was holding up, and was halfway to bailing entirely when he rounded the corner of the baked goods booth and ran straight into Lila Marlow.
Lila was 47, his nephew’s ex-wife, split amicably two years prior when he’d moved to Alaska for a pipeline job and she’d refused to leave the coast. Rafe had only spoken to her a handful of times at family holidays, but he’d always liked her sharp, dry sense of humor, the way she didn’t treat him like a glass figurine ready to shatter the second someone mentioned Ellie. She was holding a stack of paper plates stacked with peach cobbler samples, flour dusted on the cuff of her flannel shirt, and when they collided she half-stumbled, the plates tipping before he grabbed them with one hand, his palm brushing hers as he steadied the stack.
Her thumb had a rough callus from the heirloom tomato plants she grew for the local food co-op she ran, he noticed, and she smelled like lavender laundry soap and warm peach syrup. She didn’t step back when they righted themselves, staying close enough that he could feel the heat off her shoulder through his own worn flannel, her dark eyes holding his longer than casual politeness dictated. He felt a jolt low in his gut that he hadn’t felt in years, immediately followed by a sharp twist of guilt. She was his nephew’s ex. People talked in small towns. He shouldn’t be noticing how the sun hit the gray streaks in her dark hair, or how her lips curved when she smiled.
He made small talk for ten minutes, half-listening to her talk about the co-op’s new community garden, half-glancing at the groups of townsfolk milling around, waiting for someone to shoot them a judgmental look. When he moved to grab a cobbler sample off the plate she was holding, their hands brushed again, and this time she didn’t pull away, her fingers lingering against his for half a second longer than necessary.
The sky opened up all at once, fat cold raindrops slamming down so hard people yelped, scrambling for cover under pop up canopies that immediately started sagging under the weight. Lila’s stack of cobbler boxes, sitting on the edge of the booth table, started to tip off, and Rafe lunged to grab them, yanking her toward the awning of the old bait shop next door with his free hand to get them out of the rain. They were pressed shoulder to hip under the narrow awning, rain drumming so loud on the metal above them they could barely hear anyone else, the rest of the park a blur of people running for their cars.
He could feel her breath on his neck when she leaned in to yell over the rain, saying she’d thought about asking him out for coffee a dozen times over the last year but didn’t want to overstep, didn’t want people to talk about him like he was replacing Ellie. Rafe stared at her for a second, the rain dripping off the brim of his baseball cap onto his cheek, and realized he hadn’t thought about Ellie’s memory feeling disrespected once in the last 20 minutes. He’d only thought about how good it felt to talk to someone who didn’t look at him like he was half-dead already. The unspoken small town rule about not dating your nephew’s ex felt stupid, all of a sudden, smaller than the raindrops hitting the asphalt at their feet.
He told her he had a fresh pot of dark roast waiting at his cottage, and a batch of the blackberry jam Ellie had taught him to make before she got sick, if she wanted to come over and wait out the rain. She smiled, lacing her fingers through his where they still rested on the stack of cobbler boxes, and said she’d love to. They ran through the rain to his old pickup, the cold water soaking through their shirts, and he didn’t glance back at the park to see if anyone was watching. He squeezed her hand a little tighter as he unlocked the truck door, the cold rain seeping through his flannel sleeve the last thing on his mind.
