Elias Voss, 59, spent 22 years manning the Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior’s north shore before the park service automated the structure last spring, forcing his early retirement. His biggest flaw, per his only niece, is that he’s dug his heels so deep into solitude since his wife Marie passed eight years prior, he’d argue with a seagull for landing on his porch rail rather than admit he liked the company. He only agreed to man the park service’s booth at Duluth’s summer craft beer festival because his niece had pulled the “you never do anything fun” card, and he’d been too hungover from a night of drinking cheap bourbon and watching old hockey games to argue.
The first two hours drag. He hands out free trail maps and stickers to drunk 20-somethings who can’t point to Lake Superior on a map, ignores the chatter of the other volunteers, keeps one eye on the slate gray lake visible over the top of the festival tents. The air smells like fried cheese curds, hop resin, and the sharp, briny wind off the water, peanut shells crunching under his work boots every time he shifts his weight.
He’s reaching for a stack of maps when he hears her laugh, warm and smoky, before he sees her. “Elias Voss. I’d know that scowl anywhere, even under that dumb park service baseball cap.” He looks up, and his throat goes tight. It’s Lila, Marie’s younger cousin, the one who’d driven 12 hours from her wildflower seed farm outside Grand Marais to speak at Marie’s funeral, the one he’d avoided every family gathering since because even the thought of looking at her for too long had made him feel like he was cheating on the woman he’d promised to love forever. She’s 48 now, a streak of silver running through the dark hair braided over her shoulder, freckles scattered across her nose, wearing a faded flannel and work boots caked with mud.
She leans over the booth to grab a sticker for her goddaughter, and her forearm brushes his, soft and warm, the scent of pine and lavender lotion curling into his nose. He freezes. He’d spent eight years telling himself any attraction to her was a moral failure, a betrayal of the 32 years he’d had with Marie, and the pull he feels right now is so sharp it makes his teeth ache. She holds his gaze for three beats longer than polite, her thumb brushing his knuckle when she takes the sticker from his hand, and he has to fight the urge to pull his hand away.
They make small talk first, awkward at first, then easier. She tells him about her farm, how she’s been planting native wildflowers to help the local bee population, how she still has the jar of sea glass Marie gave her for her 30th birthday. He tells her about the lighthouse, how he still drives up once a week to make sure the lens is clean even though the park service told him he doesn’t have to. When his shift ends an hour later, she asks him if he wants to get a beer, and he says yes before he can talk himself out of it.
They sit at a wobbly picnic table on the edge of the festival, far enough from the stage that the live country music is just a low hum. She sits so close their thighs press together under the table, the rough fabric of her flannel rubbing against his jeans, and he doesn’t move away. He tells her about how he’d been sleeping on the couch for six months after Marie died, because the bed felt too big, and she doesn’t pity him, just nods, and says she did the same thing after her fiancé left her seven years prior. The disgust he’d felt earlier, the sharp voice in his head telling him he was doing something wrong, fades a little every time she laughs at one of his dry, dark jokes about lighthouse life.
The sun dips low over the lake, painting the sky pink and orange, when she tucks a strand of windblown hair behind her ear, her hand brushing his cheek by accident. He doesn’t flinch. He covers her hand with his, calloused from decades of climbing lighthouse stairs and fixing generators, and she doesn’t pull away. “Marie used to tease me,” she says, soft enough only he can hear, “said if she ever went first, I’d be the only person stubborn enough to put up with your grumpy ass. Said she’d haunt you if you didn’t at least take me to dinner once.”
The last of the resistance in his chest crumbles. He’d spent eight years thinking moving on meant forgetting, but in that moment, he realizes it doesn’t. It just means letting himself feel something other than grief, for the first time in almost a decade. He asks her if she wants to get dinner at that tiny fish shack up the shore, the one Marie used to drag him to every anniversary, and she grins, her dimples showing.
He carries her canvas bag full of seed packets when they leave, the rough burlap scratching his palm, the wind off the lake tangling their hair as they walk through the parking lot. He doesn’t look back at the festival, doesn’t worry about what other family members will say if they see them together, for the first time in years only paying attention to what’s right in front of him. He holds the car door open for her, and when she slides into the passenger seat, she pats the spot next to her, warm and unhurried.
