Moe Sorensen, 62, spent most of his days behind the scuffed oak counter of his coastal Oregon bait and tackle shop, talking more to the stuffed king salmon mounted over the door than to customers. His biggest flaw was that he’d perfected the art of disappearing: since his wife Ellen died seven years prior, he’d skipped every town event, dodged every well-meaning widow his neighbor tried to set him up with, and stuck to the same routine of opening at 6 a.m., closing at 4, and eating frozen meatloaf alone on his couch every night. He only showed up to the fire department’s annual summer cookout because his old deck boss, Joe, had showed up at his shop two days prior, holding a case of his favorite IPA, and said the department needed the fundraiser cash to replace a waterlogged rescue boat. Moe couldn’t say no to first responders, not after a Coast Guard crew had pulled him and his crew out of a 30-foot swell back in ‘98.
He stood by the charcoal grill, holding a paper plate sagging under a charred cheeseburger and over-dressed potato salad, picking at the frayed cuff of his oil-stained denim work shirt, when he turned to reach for a seltzer from the plastic cooler at his feet and bumped hard into someone. The beer the other person was holding sloshed over the rim, splattering both of their jeans. He started to apologize, then froze when he looked down. It was Lila Marlow, Ellen’s second cousin, the kid who’d showed up every summer from Sacramento to stay with her grandma, the one who’d followed Ellen around like a shadow, who’d bugged Moe for weeks to teach her how to fillet salmon until he finally caved. Last time he’d seen her, she was 19, had neon blue hair, a lip ring, and was heading off to art school. Now she was 47, her auburn hair streaked with silver, pulled back in a messy braid, freckles still dusting her nose, wearing a faded flannel over a ribbed white tank top, a tattoo of a salmon wrapping around her left wrist.
She laughed, wiping the beer off her jeans with a paper napkin, and said she should’ve been watching where she was going. The sound of her laugh was the same as he remembered, bright, a little rough around the edges, like the seagulls that circled the docks at dawn. He mumbled another apology, already planning to excuse himself and head back to his truck, when she said she still had the little cedar salmon lure he’d carved for her 31 years prior, for her 16th birthday. She pulled it out of the pocket of her work pants, the paint chipped, the hook still sharp, and held it up between them. The sun caught the red paint on the lure’s scales, and for a second Moe forgot how to breathe.
He knew he shouldn’t be standing there talking to her. It felt wrong, like he was crossing some invisible line, like Ellen would roll her eyes at him from wherever she was, like the group of church ladies sitting at the picnic table 10 feet away were already whispering. He’d always thought of her as a kid, a gawky teen who’d trip over her own feet trying to carry coolers of bait down to the boat. But now she was leaning against the cooler next to him, her shoulder brushing his every time someone walked past, her eyes crinkling when she told him she’d moved back three months prior to take care of her mom, who’d had a stroke, that she worked as a wildlife illustrator now, mostly painting native fish for the state’s conservation department. She didn’t look at him with that sad, pitying look everyone else in town gave him, the look that said “poor Moe, lost his wife too young.” She looked at him like she saw the guy who’d let her drive the seiner when Ellen was napping below deck, who’d snuck her sips of beer when she was 17, who’d stayed up with her until 2 a.m. the night her parents told her they were getting divorced, talking about how the ocean didn’t care if your life was falling apart, it just kept moving.
When she reached past him to grab a jar of pickles off the table next to the grill, her arm pressed against his chest for half a second, her skin cool from holding her iced beer, her nails painted with tiny, hand-drawn rainbow trout. The contact made his skin prickle, and he had to look away for a second, suddenly flustered. He told himself he was being an idiot, that he was old enough to be her dad almost, that this was inappropriate. But then she said Ellen had written her a letter a few months before she died, told her if she ever moved back to the coast, she should look Moe up, said he was the only good man within 100 miles, that he’d been alone too long and didn’t know how to ask for company.
The local cover band that’d been playing 90s country all afternoon switched to a slow, twangy Patsy Cline track, and Lila wiped her hands on her jeans and held out her hand to him. He stared at it, confused, and she rolled her eyes and said she wanted to dance, that she hadn’t danced with anyone worth dancing with in years. He said he hadn’t danced since his wedding, that he was terrible at it. She said that didn’t matter, no one was watching anyway. He hesitated for another three beats, then took her hand. Her hand was smaller than his, calloused at the fingertips from holding paintbrushes for hours, and it fit in his palm like it had been made to.
They swayed a few feet away from the rest of the crowd, not too close, but close enough that he could smell her perfume, pine and sea salt, close enough that when she tilted her head up to talk to him, her breath fanned across his neck. She told him she’d had a crush on him when she was 16, that she’d spent the whole summer trying to impress him, that she’d been heartbroken when she had to go back to Sacramento at the end of August. He admitted he’d thought about her a handful of times over the years, wondered how she was doing, felt like a creep for it, like he was being unfaithful to Ellen. She laughed, soft, and rested her head on his chest for a second, said Ellen would’ve kicked his ass for being so stupid, that she always wanted him to be happy, even after she was gone.
When the song ended, neither of them let go of each other’s hands. She said she was heading down to the south pier at sunset to sketch the sea lions that hung out on the rocks, asked if he wanted to come, bring the lure he’d carved her, that he could finally teach her how to cast properly like he’d promised when she was 16. He nodded, his throat too tight to talk, and squeezed her hand a little tighter. They walked past the picnic tables, past the church ladies who were definitely staring now, past Joe who gave him a subtle thumbs up, and headed toward the parking lot. He tucked the extra IPA he’d grabbed from the cooler into his jacket pocket, already looking forward to the way the golden sunset would hit the freckles across her cheeks when they got to the pier.
