Roland Voss leans against a rough, splintered oak post at the Waukesha County fall festival, sipping a nut brown ale that tastes like roasted chestnuts and burnt caramel. His work boots are caked with half-melted corn maze mud, the frayed cuff of his Carhartt jeans brushing the top of the left one where a German shepherd bit through the fabric back in 2017, when he was still carrying mail through Milwaukee’s south side. He’s 62, retired four years after 38 years on the route, and he only showed up today because his old route partner Pete all but dragged him out of his workshop, where he spends most weekends sanding and painting vintage birdhouses for the local elementary school. He hasn’t so much as bought a woman a cup of coffee since his wife Lynn died of ovarian cancer in 2015; he calls any flicker of interest in anyone else cheating, plain and simple, like he’s breaking a vow he made the day they got married in his parents’ backyard.
He’s watching a group of elementary schoolers chase a Rhode Island Red that escaped the 4-H pen when something taps his shoulder. He turns, and it’s Elara Mendez, the woman who runs the wildflower honey stand at the weekly farmers market he stops at every Saturday for sourdough. She’s holding two small sample jars of golden honey, her dark hair streaked with silver pulled tight in a braid that falls over her shoulder, her red flannel unbuttoned over a faded 2008 Harley Davidson rally tee that fits snug across her shoulders. She says she spotted him standing alone, figured he’d want a taste of the new batch she pressed last week from hives she keeps out by the Kettle Moraine. He’s flustered at first, the back of his neck going pink, half-ready to say no because wildflower honey was Lynn’s favorite, they’d drive 45 minutes every spring to pick up a jar from the same farm for 22 years. But he takes the jar anyway, and their fingers brush when he wraps his hand around the cool glass. Her skin is warm, calloused from lifting heavy hive boxes, and a jolt shoots up his forearm that he hasn’t felt since the last time Lynn kissed him before her first chemo treatment.
Guilt twists in his gut immediately, sharp and sour, and he almost sets the jar down on the post and walks away. But she’s already leaning against the oak next to him, close enough that he can smell the lavender soap she uses and the faint, sweet stickiness of honey on her breath. She teases him about always wearing the same faded navy USPS cap, says she’s been working up the nerve to talk to him for three months, noticed he always slips an extra five dollar bill in her tip jar even when he only buys a loaf of sourdough from the stand next to hers. He laughs, surprised, says he always felt bad for the days the rain soaked her sign and she had to wipe the honey off her hands to make change for old ladies with exact change and a dozen questions about how she keeps the bees from stinging her.
A group of drunk college kids in matching flannel stumble past, one of them slamming hard into Elara’s shoulder before slurring an apology and vanishing into the crowd. She stumbles forward into Roland, and his hands fly to her waist to steady her, calloused palms pressing into the soft fabric of her tee. For three long seconds they’re pressed chest to chest, her dark eyes locked on his, neither of them pulling away. He can feel the steady thud of her heart through the thin cotton, and for the first time in eight years, the guilt doesn’t win. He admits he’s been avoiding talking to her too, that he thought any flicker of interest in someone else meant he was forgetting Lynn. She nods, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a soft smile, says she lost her husband in a highway construction accident seven years back, knows that feeling like a punch to the ribs every time she so much as thinks about going to dinner with someone new. “Loving someone who’s gone doesn’t mean you don’t get to love someone new, dummy,” she says, and reaches up to brush a crumb of oak bark out of his hair, her thumb grazing the stubble on his cheek. He doesn’t flinch.
They stay leaned against the post for another hour, passing the honey sample jars back and forth, talking about the time Roland got stuck in a snowbank on his route for two hours, about the time a bear broke into two of Elara’s hives last summer, about the stupid way Lynn used to burn toast every Sunday morning and blame it on the toaster. The sun dips below the treeline, the string lights strung between the oak posts flickering to life, casting warm gold streaks across her face. When the festival announcer comes over the loudspeaker to say the grounds are closing in 15 minutes, Roland clears his throat and asks her if she wants to get apple pie at the diner down the road, the one with the neon sign that’s been broken on the left “E” since 2019. She grins, nods, and slips her hand into his when they turn to walk toward the parking lot. His palm is a little sweaty, and for half a second he almost pulls away, but then she squeezes his fingers, and he laces his through hers.
