Moe Sorrentino, 59, spent 31 years teaching high school woodshop before he retired last spring, now spends six hours a day shaping bamboo blanks and tying custom fly rods out of his cinder block workshop behind his cabin 20 minutes outside Asheville. His biggest flaw? He holds grudges so long they grow roots. For 22 years, he’s carried a chip on his shoulder the size of a two-by-four for Lila Marlow, his ex-wife’s younger sister, the woman he swore ratted him out for sneaking off to fish the Davidson River on his 10th wedding anniversary, the mistake that kicked off the year-long fight that ended his marriage.
He only comes into town on Wednesdays for the trivia night at the Hill Street Beer Garden, likes that the crowd’s mostly older locals, no rowdy college kids yelling over the jukebox. The air’s crisp this early October night, sharp with the smell of smoked almonds from the snack bar and hazy IPA sloshing over the edges of plastic mugs, the jukebox spinning a deep cut Johnny Cash track he hasn’t heard since he was 17. He’s sat at the same rickety high top for three years straight, so when someone yanks the empty chair across from him out, he’s half ready to tell them to kick rocks before he looks up.
It’s Lila. She’s 54 now, the auburn hair she used to wear in pigtails streaked with silver, pulled back in a messy braid, her flannel shirt unbuttoned over a faded Fleetwood Mac tee, chipped sage green nail polish on her fingers from patching drywall and digging up rose bushes at her mom’s old cottage west of town. He’d heard from a former coworker she moved back last month to care for her mom, who’s got early stage dementia. All the other tables are packed, so she smiles, small and tentative, and nods at the empty seat. “Mind if I crash? I didn’t realize trivia night got this busy this time of year.”
He grunts, nods, pushes the extra answer sheet and pen across the table. Their fingers brush when she grabs the pen, her skin warm, calloused at the pads from months of home repair, and he’s suddenly hyper aware of how close she’s pulled the chair, her knee brushing his denim-clad calf every time she shifts in her seat. She orders a pumpkin ale, leans forward to yell the answer to the first 90s TV question over the crowd, her shoulder brushing his bicep when she points at the host on the stage. He can smell lavender hand lotion and pine on her, like she’d been out walking in the woods before she showed up, and for a second he forgets how to form the name of the middle kid from *Home Improvement*.
He spends the first three rounds fighting between the old, sharp resentment he’s carried for two decades and the stupid, thrumming pull he’d felt for her even before he married her sister, back when she was 19 and used to crash on their couch during college breaks, always leaving half-empty cans of root beer on his workbench and asking questions about the birdhouses he was building for the neighborhood kids. He’d written that pull off as a mid-20s lapse in judgment, buried it under anger when his ex served him divorce papers, convinced Lila had told her about the fishing trip.
The turning point hits during halftime, when they’re both reaching for the bowl of salted peanuts on the table, their hands knocking together again, and she huffs a laugh, wiping peanut salt off on her jeans. “You know, I always wondered why you stopped talking to me after the divorce. I thought maybe you blamed me for not talking her out of leaving.”
He blinks, stares at her, the crackle of the fire pit behind her lighting up the gold flecks in her brown eyes. “Blamed you? I thought you told her I snuck off to fish on our anniversary. That’s what started the whole mess.”
She snorts, loud enough that the guy at the next table glances over, and she leans in closer, her hand resting lightly on his forearm for a second, the rough fabric of his flannel catching on her cuticles. “Are you kidding? She found the crumpled fishing license receipt in the pocket of your rain jacket when she was doing laundry. I covered for you twice before that, when you snuck off to fish on her birthday and that Christmas you said you had to run to the hardware store. I never told her a thing.”
It hits him like a board to the chest, all that 22 years of anger melting so fast he feels dizzy, realizes he’d been so desperate to be mad at someone that wasn’t himself for ruining his marriage, he’d pinned it all on the one person who’d ever had his back back then. He can hear the crowd cheering for the halftime cornhole contest, feel the heat of the fire on his cheek, the faint pressure of her hand still on his arm, and for the first time in 20 years, he laughs, loud and genuine.
They win the last three rounds by six points, split the $50 bar tab prize, put it toward a round of bourbon shots for the retired teacher couple next to them who’d helped them answer the 70s rock question. By the time they walk out to the parking lot, the air’s cold enough to see their breath, the sky clear and full of stars, no city light bleed out this far on the edge of town. She stops next to his beat up 2008 Ford F150, kicks a pebble across the asphalt, and looks up at him, grinning. “I heard you build custom fly rods now. I’ve been wanting to learn to tie flies for years. You gonna charge me an arm and a leg for lessons, or can I trade you homegrown tomatoes from my mom’s garden?”
He unlocks the passenger door, holds it open for her, the cool night wind wrapping around them, carrying the smell of pine from the woods across the street. She brushes a strand of silver-streaked hair behind her ear, and her shoulder presses warm and solid against his chest when she steps up into the cab.
