Roland Voss, 62, spent 38 years teaching high school woodshop before he retired three years prior, and his biggest flaw was that he’d rather gnaw through a 2×4 than deviate from a routine he’d set for himself. His wife of 34 years had passed from ovarian cancer four years before he left the school district, and he’d filled the empty slots in his days with rigid plans: Tuesday mornings at the hardware store, Thursday afternoons turning bowls in his backyard shop, Friday fish fry at the VFW, no exceptions. The only break he’d allowed himself all summer was a trip to the county fair’s annual portable sawmill demonstration, the kind that turned full oak logs into rough cut planks in ten minutes flat, no fancy gear required.
He was holding a sweating lemon shake-up in one hand and a pamphlet on white oak grading in the other when he rounded the corner of the demonstration tent and bumped straight into someone, the slush in his cup sloshing over the edge before a quick hand grabbed the rim to steady it. His eyes dropped first to the silver hoop earrings glinting in the sun, then to the smattering of freckles across the bridge of a nose he’d memorized 25 years prior. Lorraine Marlow. Jake Marlow’s mom, the kid who’d accidentally glued his own hand to a birdhouse during Roland’s 1998 woodshop 101 class. She was 58 now, silver streaks running through the chestnut hair he remembered pulled back in a tight ponytail for parent-teacher conferences, wearing a faded flannel shirt and work boots, the same lavender perfume she’d worn back then wrapping around him like a half-remembered dream.
She laughed, the sound warm and rough like she spent half her days yelling over farm equipment, which he later learned she did, running a small horse rescue 20 minutes outside town. Her hand was still wrapped around the cup where their fingers brushed, calloused from mucking stalls and braiding horse manes, and he felt a jolt run up his arm that had nothing to do with the ice in the drink. He stammered out an apology, half ready to mumble an excuse and bolt for his pickup, but she asked if he was heading to the livestock barns next, said she was supposed to meet a friend there who never showed. He hesitated, his internal clock screaming that he was supposed to be home by 3 to finish turning a walnut bowl for his niece’s wedding, but he nodded before he could talk himself out of it.
They walked side by side, close enough that their elbows brushed every few steps, and he found himself talking more than he had to anyone who wasn’t the cashier at the hardware store in months. She told him she still had the wonky cutting board Jake made in his class, used it every single day for chopping vegetables, even though one corner was an inch shorter than the rest. He told her he still remembered the jar of homemade chocolate chip cookies she’d brought him after Jake got a B on his final project, even though he’d eaten them in his shop after school so none of the other teachers would tease him for accepting gifts from pretty parents. The thought made his face heat up, and he looked away, half disgusted with himself for even admitting that out loud, for feeling that same flutter in his chest he’d felt back when he was supposed to be a neutral authority figure, not a grown man noticing how a mom’s smile made his hands shake.
They stopped at the goat barn first, and a tiny baby Nigerian dwarf goat slipped through the fence and nibbled at the cuff of his flannel shirt, making her snort and lean into his arm for half a second, the heat of her body seeping through the thin fabric. He almost lifted his hand to rest on her back, but he pulled it away, his mind screaming that this was wrong, that she was his former student’s mom, that crossing that line made him a creep, even though Jake was 39 now, married with two kids, even though both of them had been single for years. The war between the want humming under his skin and the guilt gnawing at his chest was so loud he almost didn’t hear her ask if he wanted to split a bag of fried cheese curds.
The sky opened up halfway through the line for the curd stand, fat raindrops splattering the dirt at their feet, and they huddled under the tiny plastic awning, pressed shoulder to shoulder, her hip tucked tight against his. She pulled a warm curd out of the paper bag when they got their order, held it up to his mouth, and he took it without thinking, his lips brushing the tip of her finger. The salt burst on his tongue, and he blurted out that he’d thought about her on and off for 25 years, that he’d felt like a perv for it every single time. She laughed, soft this time, and said she’d thought about him too, that she’d intentionally scheduled Jake’s parent-teacher conferences for the end of the day so she could talk to him alone, that she’d felt just as guilty for it.
The rain slowed to a drizzle ten minutes later, and they walked to his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150, their boots squelching in the mud. He asked her if she wanted to come back to his shop, said he had a stack of rough cut cherry he’d been meaning to turn into cutting boards, that she could pick out the best piece and he’d shape it for her, no wonky corners this time. She climbed into the passenger seat without hesitation, set her half-empty lemon shake-up in the cup holder next to his, and laced her fingers through his where his hand rested on the gear shift before he turned the key.
