Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, had only dragged himself to the small western Michigan harvest festival at his neighbor’s pleading. Seven years out from his wife’s sudden heart attack, he’d perfected the art of turning down invitations, his go-to excuse being that he had a half-finished oak rocking chair waiting for him in his garage. It was only when his neighbor mentioned she needed an extra set of hands to haul the pie contest entries to the beer tent that he’d caved, figuring he could slip out after ten minutes, no small talk required.
The tent reeked of fried apple fritters, damp pine straw, and spiced hard cider, the hum of old country covers from the live band thrumming through the plywood floor under his scuffed work boots. He’d just grabbed a plastic cup of cider, the cold seeping through the red solo wall to chill his palm, and was turning to head for the exit when he collided with someone half his size, half the contents of their own cup sloshing across the front of his faded gray flannel.
“Christ, I’m so sorry—” The woman’s voice was familiar, warm, and when he looked down he recognized Marnie Hale immediately. Her son Jake had been in his junior year woodshop class 21 years prior, back when Ronan still coached the freshman football team and his wife used to bring chocolate chip cookies to parent-teacher conferences. Marnie had been married then, same as him, he’d always felt a stupid little flutter when they talked, the kind he’d squashed down immediately, out of loyalty to his wife and respect for the student-parent line he never crossed. She was 58 now, streaks of silver in her dark curly hair, a soft scar along her left knuckle he remembered her mentioning she’d gotten helping Jake sand the lopsided birdhouse he’d made her for Christmas that year.
She grabbed a crumpled napkin from the picnic table beside them, dabbing at the wet spot on his sleeve, her knuckle brushing his wrist for half a second. The scent of lavender perfume mixed with campfire smoke hit him, sharp and sweet, and he felt a jolt he hadn’t felt in years, immediately followed by a sharp twist of guilt—like he was doing something wrong, something dirty, for even noticing how her laugh crinkled the corners of her eyes, how her cream cable knit sweater fit tight across her shoulders.
He made a dumb joke about how he’d spilled worse on that flannel, including a whole can of polyurethane back when Jake had accidentally knocked it off his workbench senior year, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth. They sat down at the splintered picnic table, the legs uneven enough that it rocked a little when either of them shifted, their knees brushing every time one of them leaned in to talk over the band. She told him she’d been widowed three years prior, her husband had lost his fight with lung cancer, she’d been working part time at the local animal shelter ever since. He told her about the rocking chair, about how he’d been avoiding events like this for years, scared he’d run into people who only wanted to ask how he was holding up.
The band wrapped their set, the crowd cheering, and she tilted her head toward the orchard path behind the tent, strung with gold fairy lights strung between the apple trees. “Wanna walk? They lit the whole path for the festival, it’s real pretty this time of night.” He hesitated, every self-protective instinct screaming to say no, to go home to his empty house and his half-finished chair and the TV reruns he watched every night. Then he looked at her hand resting on the table, chipped cherry red nail polish, that familiar scar on her knuckle, and nodded.
The path crunched under their boots, dead apple leaves and dropped fruit squelching softly underfoot, the cold October air sharp enough that he could see their breath fog in front of their faces. They stopped at a weathered wooden bench half-hidden behind a row of Honeycrisp trees, and she sat down, bumping her shoulder against his when he sat beside her. He didn’t move away. He reached up, brushing a dry pink apple blossom stuck in her curls, his fingers brushing her cheek for half a second, and she held his eye contact, no awkward look away, no nervous laugh, just that same quiet warmth he’d remembered from all those years ago.
She told him she still had that birdhouse Jake made hanging on her back porch, it had survived three thunderstorms and a raccoon that tried to chew through the roof. He told her he still had the lopsided cutting board Jake had made in his senior year, he used it every morning to cut his toast. She smiled, and said she had the second place apple pie she’d entered in the contest sitting in her car, and she had fresh coffee brewed at her place ten minutes away, if he wanted to split a slice.
He nodded, standing up, offering her a hand to pull her to her feet. Their palms fit together like they’d been made to, calluses on his from decades of working with wood matching the calluses on hers from grooming shelter dogs. They walked back toward the parking lot, their hands brushing every three steps, neither of them making a move to pull away.
