Elroy Voss, 62, spent 31 years teaching high school woodshop before he retired three years prior. His wife, Lois, had passed eight years before that from ovarian cancer, and he’d fallen into a rhythm so rigid he could map his days down to the minute: 6 a.m. coffee on the back porch, 7 a.m. feed the three stray cats that hung around his garage, 9 a.m. every Saturday hit the farmers market for raw honey, fresh bread, and whatever ugly gourd the Amish kids were selling that week. His biggest flaw was that he refused to deviate from that rhythm for any reason—he’d turned down invites to fishing trips, his niece’s wedding rehearsal dinner, even a free ticket to an Ohio State home game because they didn’t fit into his pre-planned schedule.
He’d expected to see old Tom Carter behind the honey stand that crisp October Saturday, same as he had for 12 years. Instead, there was a woman with sun-streaked brown hair pulled back in a braid, a smudge of beeswax on her left cheek, leaning against the table flipping through a dog-eared western novel. She looked up when he stepped close, and a grin spread across her face that he recognized immediately, even if the rest of her was nothing like the scrawny 13 year old he’d last seen tagging along behind Tom to the school woodshop.
“Mr. Voss,” she said, pushing off the table so she was standing less than a foot away from him, close enough he could smell the lavender soap she used and the sharp, sweet scent of clover honey wafting off the jars behind her. “Dad retired last month. Said his knees couldn’t handle hauling hives up and down the orchard hills anymore. I’m Maren.”
He nodded, his throat suddenly dry. He’d watched this kid get her first period in the teacher’s lounge when she’d come to visit her dad during 8th grade, for Christ’s sake. He had no business noticing how her flannel shirt fit across her shoulders, or the tiny silver bee tattoo peeking out from the cuff of her work boot. “Good to see you’re doing well,” he said, keeping his voice gruff, eyes fixed on the stack of honey jars to avoid looking at her face too long.
She laughed, a low, warm sound that cut through the noise of the cider vendor yelling two stalls over. “You used to slip me cherry lollipops when I’d hang out in your shop after school. Said I was better at sanding birdhouses than half your 10th grade students. Remember that?”
He did. He also remembered the table saw accident in 2007 that left a thin, silvery scar across his right knuckle, the same scar she tapped with her index finger when she leaned in a little closer, like she was pointing out a shared secret. When he reached for the quart jar of wildflower honey he always bought, his elbow knocked over a small beeswax candle sitting on the edge of the table. They both reached for it at the same time, their hands slamming together, her palm warm and calloused from working hive tools, the weight of her hand against his sending a jolt up his arm he hadn’t felt since Lois was alive.
He pulled back fast, face hot, fumbling to set the candle straight. “Sorry,” he mumbled, digging for his wallet. “Clumsy.”
“Nah, I put it too close to the edge,” she said, and he could hear the grin in her voice, could feel her eyes on his face even when he wouldn’t look up. She pushed the jar of honey across the table to him, and when he tried to hand her a ten dollar bill, she waved it away. “On the house. I actually need a favor. Dad said you still build custom birdhouses in your garage workshop. I got 12 new hives going in the west orchard, and the sparrows are stealing all the bee pollen. I need half a dozen sparrow houses to put up around the perimeter. I’ll trade you a year of free honey, plus that dark stout you used to drink after school on Fridays. Still like that, right?”
The logical part of his brain screamed no. This was his old friend’s daughter, 24 years younger than him, he hadn’t done a custom build for anyone but the local animal shelter in three years, he didn’t need to shake up his routine for this. But the part of his brain that was tired of eating frozen meatloaf alone every night, tired of the same old days bleeding into each other, won out. “I don’t take free stuff,” he said, finally meeting her eyes. They were hazel, flecked with gold, and she didn’t look away when he held her gaze. “You bring the stout when you drop off the measurements, and we’ll call it even.”
She pumped her fist once, like she’d just won a prize, and scribbled her cell phone number on a scrap of beeswax paper, shoving it into his flannel pocket before he could protest. “I’ll be there at 2 p.m. next Saturday. Don’t bail on me, Mr. Voss. I already told Dad you said yes.”
He didn’t bail. He spent the week cleaning out his workshop, putting away the half-finished bird feeder he’d been working on, even buying a new pack of sandpaper even though he had three unopened packs in the top drawer. When she knocked on his garage door at 1:58 p.m. the next Saturday, she was carrying a six pack of the exact stout he’d drunk back in the 2000s, a roll of blueprints for the orchard, and an extra jar of wildflower honey with a little bee sticker on the lid.
They leaned over his workbench to go over the dimensions she wanted, their shoulders pressed together, the heat from her arm seeping through his t-shirt. She smelled like lavender and honey again, and when she leaned up to brush a fleck of sawdust off his cheek, her fingers brushing his skin, he didn’t pull away. The voice in his head that kept saying this was wrong, that people would talk, that Tom would be mad, got quieter and quieter the longer they talked, the more she laughed at his bad jokes about terrible high school shop students.
They finished the first beer before they even finalized the plans, and she leaned back against the workbench, twisting the beer bottle cap between her fingers. “You know that new taco spot downtown? The one everyone’s been talking about? I heard they have grilled pineapple margaritas that’ll knock your socks off. You wanna go get dinner after we finish going over this?”
He’d spent six months making fun of that taco spot to his neighbor, saying it was just a fad for the college kids that moved into town, that no real taco needed grilled pineapple on it. He nodded anyway, wiping his hands on his work jeans before grabbing his denim jacket off the hook by the garage door. When he locked the door behind them, she slipped her hand into his, her fingers lacing through his calloused ones easily, like they were made to fit there.
