Roy Pritchard, 61, custom fly tier who supplies steelhead guides across northern Michigan, had not set foot at the Mason County Fair in four years. Not since Linda, his wife of 37 years, had lost her fight with ovarian cancer two weeks after they’d taken home his seventh consecutive blue ribbon for custom wet flies. His biggest flaw, the one his older brother teased him about every holiday, was that he’d turned into a recluse who treated any friendly attention from women like a pity handout, convinced moving on would be a betrayal of the life he and Linda had built. He’d only agreed to enter the contest this year because his 16-year-old grandson, who’d started tying flies with him the year prior, had begged him to show the kids in the hobby tent what a proper steelhead pattern looked like.
He’d dropped off his entries and ducked into the draft beer tent to escape the mid-August humidity, the air thick with the smell of fried onion rings, pine-sol wiped picnic tables, and the sharp, sweet tang of the sangria slushies the volunteer fire department was selling out of a dented chest freezer. He was stepping back to avoid a kid sprinting past with a cone of cotton candy dripping pink down his wrist, when his shoulder collided with someone behind him, cold, citrusy liquid sloshing over the edge of a plastic cup and onto the cuff of his gray wool flannel.
He turned to apologize, and came face to face with a woman in a faded maroon Carhartt jacket, a smudge of neon green sheep marker on the side of her left wrist, dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid. She was 58, he later learned, named Maren, the new 4-H county extension agent, moved to the area six months prior after a messy divorce from a man who’d spent 32 years treating her like an afterthought. She laughed, a low, warm sound that cut through the hum of the fair rides and the chatter of the crowd, and dabbed at his sleeve with a crumpled napkin from her pocket, her knuckles brushing his forearm lightly as she did. He froze. He hadn’t been touched by a woman who wasn’t his doctor or a grocery store cashier in four years, and the jolt that ran up his arm was so unexpected he nearly dropped his own beer.
She gestured to the empty spot across from him at the sticky vinyl picnic table, and he nodded, pulling the seat out for her. She sat close enough that their knees almost brushed under the table, and he found himself leaning in when she talked, like he was straining to hear her over the noise even though she was only a foot away. She held eye contact a beat longer than polite when he spoke, no pity in her dark brown eyes, just curiosity, when she pointed to the faded fly tying patch sewn to the breast of his flannel, said her dad had tied flies for trout in the Upper Peninsula his whole life, that she still had his old brass vice sitting in a box in her garage, had no clue how to use it.
He talked more in that 45 minutes than he had in the entire prior month, telling her about the patterns he’d entered in the contest, the time Linda had accidentally dyed a batch of fly feathers neon pink when she’d mixed up laundry detergent and fabric dye, the way his grandson had tied his first steelhead fly last month and caught a 12-pound monster on it on the Pere Marquette. He kept waiting for the familiar twist of guilt in his gut, the voice telling him he shouldn’t be enjoying this, shouldn’t be laughing at her stories about the 4-H kids who’d tried to dye their lambs blue for the show, shouldn’t be noticing the way the sun hit the silver streaks in her hair when she tilted her head back to laugh. It never came.
When she mentioned she had to get back to the lamb judging, he offered to walk her over to the 4-H barn, his hand brushing the small of her back for half a second when they stepped over a curb to avoid a puddle of spilled soda. She didn’t flinch. She stopped halfway to the barn to pet a scruffy border collie that belonged to one of the 4-H kids, the dog licking her cheek until she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and he realized he wasn’t just attracted to her, he felt seen, like she didn’t look at him and see the widower who’d hidden away in his garage for four years, just a guy who knew how to tie a good fly and had a stash of dumb fishing stories.
When they got to the barn door, she turned to him, her hand resting light on his elbow, and asked if he wanted to come over to her place next Saturday. Said she’d pick up fresh king salmon from the fish market on the way home, grill it with lemon and dill, if he’d bring his tying supplies and show her how to use her dad’s old vice. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t overthink it, just said yes.
He walked back to his beat-up Ford F-150 an hour later, after he’d watched the lamb judging for a few minutes, after she’d waved at him from the judging ring with that same wide, crinkly-eyed smile. He pulled his phone out of his pocket when he got behind the wheel, pulled up his calendar, and scribbled a tiny, lopsided fly next to the Saturday slot, his chest light in a way he hadn’t felt in years. He pulled out of the fair parking lot, the windows rolled down, the smell of pine and cool lake air drifting in, and didn’t even think about the guilt he’d been carrying for four years once the whole way home.
