Elias Voss leans against the splintered wooden bar of the festival beer tent, wiping sweat from his brow with the cuff of his plaid flannel. At 62, retired from 30 years as a rural Ohio high school woodshop teacher, he’s used to the dull ache in his knees after a day hauling hand-carved birdhouses from his pickup to his vendor booth, but the unseasonable 78-degree October heat is throwing him off. He’d sold 17 of the houses that afternoon, all proceeds going to the town animal shelter, the same tradition he and his late wife Elaine had kept for 30 years before her stroke in 2015. He’d almost skipped the after-festival beer, the same way he’d skipped every casual social invite for the last 8 years, but his throat was too dry to pass up the cold draft.
The elbow he jabs into the woman’s side when he reaches for a napkin is entirely accidental. He apologizes fast, stammering a little, and she laughs, the sound bright over the twang of the bluegrass band playing 20 feet away. It’s Maren Hale, the new librarian who’d moved to town three months prior, the one the guys down at Miller’s Hardware had snickered about the week before, calling her reckless for leaving a 30-year marriage in Portland to move to small-town Ohio alone, no job lined up first, no family within 500 miles. She’s got a smudge of caramel apple on the edge of her jaw, her gray-streaked brown hair pulled back in a messy braid, a faded Fleetwood Mac t-shirt under her oversized denim jacket.
She leans in to point at the tiny bluebird house pin fastened to his flannel lapel, her shoulder brushing his, and Elias catches a whiff of vanilla lotion and fried dough, the same scent Elaine used to wear to the festival every year. His throat goes tight. He’d spent 8 years convincing himself any flicker of interest in another person was a betrayal, that he was supposed to spend the rest of his days alone, tending to his woodshop and his backyard bird feeders and nothing else. Maren holds his gaze for three full beats longer than polite, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners, and he looks away first, fidgeting with the edge of his beer cup, the cold condensation seeping into the calluses on his palms from decades of planing wood.
They make small talk at first, about the record turnout for the festival, about the birdhouse sales, about the skittish stray tabby that’d been hanging around the library’s back step for the last two weeks. Every time she laughs, she leans a little closer, her knee brushing his where they’re both propped against the bar leg, and Elias’s chest feels like it’s full of static. He keeps waiting for the familiar guilt to hit, for the voice in his head that says you don’t get to have this anymore to yell loud enough to make him leave, but it’s quiet, quieter than it’s been in years.
When she asks if he wants to walk the wooded trail behind the fairgrounds to see the family of barred owls that roost there, he almost says no. Almost makes up an excuse about an early morning, about needing to clean up his booth, about a dozen different boring, safe lies. Then she grins, and he says yes before he can talk himself out of it.
The trail is lined with sugar maples, their leaves turning burnt orange and deep crimson, crunching under his scuffed work boots. The sun’s dipping below the treeline, painting the sky soft pink and pale lavender, and the noise of the festival fades the further they walk. Maren grabs his arm suddenly, holding him still, her hand warm through the thin fabric of his flannel, and points up at a thick oak branch 15 feet above them. The barred owl sits perched there, its round face tilted to the side, watching them, and Elias holds his breath, too focused on the weight of her hand on his arm to care much about the bird.
She turns to him when the owl flies off, and he points out the caramel apple smudge on her jaw before he can overthink it. She laughs, swiping at her face with the back of her hand and missing entirely, and asks if he’ll get it for her. His thumb brushes her soft skin when he wipes the sticky caramel away, and she doesn’t pull away. The kiss is soft, slow, no pressure, just the faint taste of cinnamon and apple cider on her lips, and for half a second the guilt flashes, sharp and hot, before he remembers the last thing Elaine had said to him in the hospital, her voice thin but firm: Don’t you dare spend the rest of your life moping for me, you stubborn old man. Go have fun.
They walk back to the festival 20 minutes later, their hands brushing every few steps, no one paying them any mind. Elias buys her a fresh caramel apple, extra pecans, and she buys him a second beer, and they sit on a hay bale at the edge of the crowd watching the bluegrass band play. She taps her boot against his under the bale, singing along under her breath to a song he and Elaine used to dance to in their kitchen on Saturday nights, and Elias leans back, sipping his beer, the warm October air on his face. When the band hits the chorus, he nudges her shoulder with his, and sings along too, no self-consciousness, no hesitation.
