Ronan O’Malley, 62, spent most of his adult life hunched over a workbench in his cinder block workshop outside Boone, North Carolina, building custom fly rods that sold to collectors and guides up and down the East Coast. His only flaw, if you asked his older brother, was that he’d shut every potential friend or romantic interest out cold the day his wife Elara died seven years prior, convinced even a casual coffee with another woman was a betrayal of the 32 years they’d had together. He only left the workshop these days for supply runs, the monthly Trout Unlimited meeting, and the annual Watauga River Trout Festival, mostly because his best friend Earl begged him to come see the fly tying contest Earl entered with a fly Ronan had tied for him as a birthday gift.
He was leaned up against the side of the local brewery’s beer truck, sipping a hazy IPA that tasted more citrus than bitter, when he spotted her. She was leaning against the contest table, laughing so hard her shoulders shook at some dumb redneck joke the contest judge was telling, her denim work shirt rolled up to the elbows, a tiny rainbow trout tattoo peeking out above the cuff of her worn work boots. She was Clara Bennett, 58, the new county extension agent who’d moved to the area six months prior, who’d left three voicemails on his landline asking if he’d lead a fly tying class for the county’s youth outdoor program. He’d ignored every single one, too spooked by the warm lilt of her voice on the answering machine, the way his chest had tightened when he’d seen her at the hardware store a month prior grabbing a bag of wildflower seed.
She looked up right then, caught him staring, and waved him over before he could duck behind the beer truck. He hesitated for three full seconds, then trundled over, his scuffed work boots kicking up a little dust on the dry grass. The space between them shrank fast once she pointed to Earl’s entry, the fly with the signature iridescent black walnut dyed feather wrap he only used for close friends, and said she’d know his work anywhere, she’d pored over every photo of his rods on the local Trout Unlimited website while planning the youth program. When a group of drunk college kids stumbled past chasing a stray golden retriever, she stepped into him to avoid getting knocked over, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep for a long beat, the scent of cedar shampoo and peppermint gum wrapping around him before she stepped back, cheeks pink, apologizing.
He waved it off, fumbling in the pocket of his worn gray flannel for the sample fly he kept on him to show curious kids, and when he pulled it out, he passed it to her, their fingers brushing when she took it. Her hands were rough, calloused from digging in community garden beds and repairing hiking trails, not soft like he’d expected, and the jolt that ran up his arm made him fumble his beer can, just a little. She held the fly up to the sun, turning it between her thumb and forefinger, and said she’d never seen anyone dye feathers that deep, that rich, and when he explained he collected black walnut hulls from the tree behind his workshop every fall, cured them for three months before boiling them down for dye, she leaned in so close he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek, her eyes fixed on his, like no one else in the loud, crowded beer garden existed.
The guilt hit him fast, sharp, right in the chest, and he pulled back, staring at the scuffed toes of his boots, and said he shouldn’t be talking to her like this, that Elara was the only woman he’d ever loved, that he felt like he was cheating. She didn’t push, didn’t get defensive, just handed him back the fly, and said she got it, that her husband had died in a logging accident three years prior, that she’d turned down three dinner invitations in her first three months in town because she’d felt the same way, like she was stealing time from someone who couldn’t defend himself. She reached out, brushed a stray pine needle off the collar of his flannel, her fingers lingering on the frayed edge of the fabric for half a second, and said love didn’t work like that, that the people you lost wanted you to stop hurting, eventually.
He stared at her for a long minute, the noise of the festival, the sound of the bluegrass band playing on the main stage, the smell of fried oreos and pine, all fading into the background, and realized he hadn’t felt this light, this seen, in seven whole years. He asked her if she had plans after the festival wrapped, said he could show her the black walnut tree behind his workshop, the half-finished rods he was building for the youth program, if she wanted. She smiled, that same loud, unselfconscious laugh he’d seen from across the beer garden earlier, and said she’d love to.
They walked out of the festival grounds side by side, their hands brushing every few steps, neither of them pulling away.
