Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired commercial salmon fisherman turned bait and tackle shop owner, stood hunched over the fire department cookout grill, sweat beading at his hairline under a frayed Oregon Ducks cap. He’d avoided town events for eight years, ever since his wife Eileen died of ovarian cancer, but his 10-year-old granddaughter had begged him to come man the burger station and watch her water balloon fight, so he’d caved. Grease streaked the sleeve of his red plaid flannel, and the air smelled like charred beef, hickory smoke, and salt rolling off the nearby Pacific.
He’d noticed her an hour earlier, leaning against the split-rail fence at the edge of the park, holding a plastic cup of lemonade, watching the kids shriek and dart across the grass. She was a new face, around his age, with auburn hair streaked through with silver tied loose at the nape of her neck, a faded linen button-down knotted at her waist, and scuffed white sneakers. He’d caught her glancing over three times already, each time tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear before looking away, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
She walked over ten minutes later, boots crunching on loose gravel, and asked for a burger with extra pickles. When he handed her the paper plate, their fingers brushed—his calloused from 30 years of hauling nets and tying fishing knots, hers soft, with a thin scar snaking across her left wrist. The jolt that ran up his arm was sharp enough he almost dropped the tongs he was holding. He mumbled something about the buns being fresh from the sourdough bakery on Main Street, and she laughed, a low, warm sound that made the back of his neck heat up. “I bought a loaf there last week,” she said, leaning against the grill table close enough he could smell coconut sunscreen and mint on her breath. “Gave me terrible heartburn, but I’d eat the whole thing again if I could get away with it.”
He learned her name was Clara, she’d moved to town three months prior to take a part-time librarian job, divorced after 32 years of marriage, sick of Portland traffic and ex-husbands who forgot to take the trash out for weeks on end. She mentioned she’d bought a beat-up fishing rod at the local thrift store the week before, couldn’t for the life of her figure out how to string the line without tangling it so bad she had to cut the whole spool off. The offer was on the tip of his tongue before he could stop it, and then that familiar cold guilt coiled in his gut, the voice he’d grown used to hissing that he didn’t get to have this, that any interest in another woman was a betrayal of the 27 years he’d had with Eileen. He clamped his mouth shut, and must have looked pained, because she smiled soft, like she could see the fight happening behind his eyes. A golden retriever chasing a toddler ran past, slamming into her side, and she stumbled forward, her knee bumping his thigh. She didn’t step back. She held his gaze for three full beats, longer than polite, and he felt that coiled guilt loosen just a little.
A sudden summer downpour hit out of nowhere, fat cold raindrops slamming into the grill and sending up clouds of steam. Everyone scrambled for cover under the small tin-roofed pavilion, and the crowd pushed them closer together, until her back was pressed to the rough wooden post at the edge of the structure, and he was half shielding her from the jostle of families and firemen, his forearm braced on the post next to her shoulder. Their faces were six inches apart, and he could see flecks of gold in her green eyes, a smudge of charcoal on her jaw from where she’d brushed against the grill earlier. The rain hammered so loud on the tin roof he could barely hear anything else when she leaned in, her lips almost brushing his ear, and said, “You don’t have to punish yourself for being alive, you know.”
He froze. No one had said that out loud to him, not his kids, not his best friend who kept trying to set him up with widows from the Elks lodge, no one. He didn’t say anything, just lifted his hand and brushed a stray raindrop off her cheek with the pad of his thumb. She didn’t flinch, just leaned into the touch a little, her eyelids fluttering for half a second. That cold guilt melted entirely, replaced by a warm, quiet excitement he’d forgotten he was capable of feeling.
The rain let up 20 minutes later, the sun breaking through the clouds and painting a faint rainbow over the ocean. People started filtering out, packing up coolers and herding damp, cranky kids to their cars. Clara pulled a crumpled receipt out of her jeans pocket, scribbled her phone number on the back with a pen she fished from her shirt pocket, and handed it to him. “I’m free next Saturday,” she said, grinning, as she slung her canvas tote bag over her shoulder. “If you still feel like teaching me how to string that stupid rod. We can get fish and chips afterward, my treat.”
He tucked the receipt into the breast pocket of his flannel, right next to the worn folded photo of Eileen he kept there, and nodded. He watched her walk to her beat-up blue Subaru, wave over her shoulder as she climbed in, and pull out of the parking lot, tires kicking up puddles on the gravel. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, already scrolling for the weather app to check what the tides would be next Saturday, and smiled when he saw the forecast called for clear skies and mild wind.
