Elroy Voss, 62, had been manning his heirloom apple orchard’s festival booth for four hours by the time the sun dipped low enough to gild the tops of the oak trees lining the small western Michigan town square. His red-and-black flannel was dotted with honey smudges, his steel-toe work boots caked in mud from hauling crates of Honeycrisp that morning, and he’d already turned down three invitations to the post-festival bonfire down at the river park. He didn’t do group gatherings anymore, not after Jan died eight years prior. It felt like showing up to a party she hadn’t been invited to, a cheat code to fun he hadn’t earned. His one consistent flaw, the thing his only brother still teased him for, was that he held onto guilt tighter than he held onto the hive frames he tended twice a week, convinced even small, harmless joys were a betrayal of the 32 years he’d had with his wife.
The air smelled like pressed cider, burnt sugar, and the faint tang of wood smoke drifting from the bonfire’s early kindling when she leaned over his booth. He recognized her immediately: Clara Hale, 57, ex-wife of Jan’s cousin Roger, who’d moved back to town six months prior to take the part-time librarian job after leaving Roger for cheating on her with a hardware store receptionist. He’d deliberately avoided every spot he might run into her since he’d spotted her restocking Mary Oliver collections at the library a month prior, even skipping his weekly coffee run to the diner downtown she frequented. The town gossip mill had already floated half a dozen jokes about them both being single, both quiet, both obsessed with old books and foraging, and Elroy had hated every second of it. It felt wrong, like someone was handing him a replacement part for something that wasn’t broken.
She was wearing a faded forest green flannel, jeans scuffed at the knee, and work boots just as muddy as his, holding a paper cup of spiced cider that steamed in the crisp October air. She leaned in close enough that he could smell cinnamon on her breath and lavender in her hair, the same scent Jan used to use for her laundry detergent, and he tensed up, half ready to mumble an excuse about being busy before she even spoke. “One jar of your wildflower honey,” she said, tapping the handwritten sign taped to the front of the booth, the one that read $10, no discounts, even for family. “Roger used to complain you saved all the good stuff for Jan, never let him have any that wasn’t the clover blend he hated.”
He huffed a laugh, reaching for the jar on the shelf behind him, his knuckle brushing a sticky spot where a jar had leaked earlier that day. When he turned back, she was holding out a crumpled ten dollar bill, and when he reached for it, their fingertips brushed. Both of them pulled back fast, like they’d touched a hot stove, and he fumbled the jar, catching it at the last second before it hit the booth’s rough pine surface. He dropped a quarter when he was counting out her change, and they both bent down to grab it at the same time, their foreheads bumping soft, the edge of her knit hat scraping his temple. They both laughed, loud enough that the kid running the kettle corn booth two over glanced over at them, and Elroy felt his face heat up, the same way it did when he was 16 and had asked Jan to prom.
The guilt hit him right after, sharp and cold, like a gust of wind off Lake Michigan. He should send her on her way, should make up an excuse about needing to check the hives before the frost hit that night, should stop talking to her before anyone saw them and started whispering. But she was grinning at him, holding the quarter she’d grabbed, twisting it between her fingers, and there was no pity in her eyes, no awkward I know you’re grieving tilt to her mouth, just the same sharp, teasing glint he remembered from Jan’s family cookouts 20 years prior, when she’d snuck him a beer while Roger was busy complaining about the football game. “You still make those caramel apples you used to bring to the cookouts?” she asked, nodding at the crate of Winesap apples stacked next to the booth. “Roger always said they were too sweet, but I used to steal two every time.”
He hesitated for a full ten seconds, the voice in his head that sounded just like Jan’s older sister screaming that this was wrong, that people would talk, that he was dishonoring Jan’s memory by even considering talking to her longer than he had to. But then he thought about the last conversation he’d had with Jan, three days before she died, when she’d told him he better not mope around the house forever once she was gone, better not turn down a single good thing that came his way. He realized the disgust he’d been bracing for, the sharp twist of guilt he thought he’d feel, wasn’t there. All he felt was warm, like he was standing too close to the bonfire, loose in a way he hadn’t been in almost a decade.
He closed up the booth 20 minutes later, stacking the leftover honey jars in the back of his beat-up pickup while she leaned against the tailgate, telling him about the library’s new seed exchange program she was running. Their elbows knocked every few steps when they walked down to the donut stand, and he didn’t pull away. She got a glazed donut, he got a cinnamon sugar one, and they split a bite of each, crumbs sticking to the corners of their mouths. The bonfire was roaring now, people laughing and yelling over the bluegrass band playing next to it, and for the first time in eight years, Elroy didn’t feel like he was missing someone at a party. He brushed a fleck of cinnamon sugar off her cheek with his thumb, the callus on the tip of it catching on her soft skin, and she smiled up at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners. A group of teens ran past them, yelling and waving glow sticks, and neither of them moved away.
