Ronan Hale, 62, retired U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew lead, had only shown up to the Missoula County volunteer fire department chili cookoff because his old crew foreman had called him three times in 24 hours, guilting him into judging the amateur meat category. He’d spent the last eight years avoiding large community events, sticking to his cabin 40 minutes outside town, fixing vintage chainsaws and hiking the same trails he’d patrolled for 32 years, convinced any attempt to move past his wife Maeve’s 2015 death from ovarian cancer was a betrayal. The flaw ran deep; he’d turned down three separate dinner invitations from neighbors in the last six months, lied about having plans each time, even skipped his niece’s wedding the year prior because he couldn’t handle the thought of watching a happy couple dance when his own dance card had run out far too early.
He was leaning against a cinder block wall by the beer cooler, picking at a bowl of under-seasoned venison chili that tasted like canned tomatoes and regret, when the collision happened. A woman carrying a stack of paper entry forms and a sweating plastic cup of sweet iced tea tripped over a folded camp chair at his feet, sloshing half the tea down the front of his faded red plaid flannel. She froze, hazel eyes wide, and stepped so close to him he could smell lavender hand lotion mixed with the pine sap caked on the cuff of her work jacket, the faint tang of chili powder on her breath, the cool iced tea seeping through the flannel to settle cool against his chest.
“Shit, I am so sorry,” she said, dabbing at the wet spot on his chest with a crumpled paper napkin before he could protest. Her knuckles brushed the scar snaking up his left forearm, the one he’d gotten in the 2017 Lolo Peak fire when he’d dragged a 22-year-old rookie out of a falling stand of Douglas fir, and he flinched hard enough that she pulled back immediately, apology written all over her face, hands raised like she was calming a spooked deer.
Ronan’s first instinct was to mumble that it was fine, grab another beer, and bolt for his truck before he did something stupid like ask her name. Instead, he found himself staring at the flecks of gold in her eyes, the smudge of dirt on her left cheek, the calluses on her fingers that told him she worked outside for a living, same as he had for most of his life. The guilt hit him a second later, sharp and hot, like he was cheating on Maeve just by noticing how her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes, how a strand of chestnut hair had fallen loose from her ponytail and was blowing across her face in the soft evening wind. He almost turned away, but she held out a hand, told him her name was Elara, she was the new county extension agent, moved to town six months prior from eastern Washington.
They talked for 20 minutes leaning against that wall, the noise of the cookoff, the yelling kids, the country song blaring from the speakers, fading into background static. She told him she’d spent the last week surveying pine beetle damage in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, and he found himself rambling about the time his crew had gotten stranded in the Bob for three days during a surprise May snowstorm, living off trail mix and a single jar of crunchy peanut butter, singing terrible 90s country songs to stay awake. He hadn’t told that story to anyone since Maeve died. When she pointed to his arm and asked about the scar, he told her the whole thing, no edits, no downplaying how scared he’d been that the rookie wouldn’t make it, and when she brushed her fingers across the raised, silvery tissue again, intentional this time, he didn’t flinch.
She admitted her husband had died six years prior, crushed by a falling hay bale on their family wheat farm, that she’d moved to Montana because she couldn’t stand walking past the empty barn every morning, couldn’t stand the way every neighbor looked at her like she was a broken thing to be pitied. Ronan felt the tight knot in his chest loosen, for the first time in almost a decade. He didn’t have to explain the guilt of wanting to laugh again, of wanting to sit next to someone who got the quiet weight of grief without having to talk about it every second, someone who didn’t tiptoe around the fact that the person you loved most was gone.
The emcee announced the chili contest winners over the loudspeaker, and the crowd cheered so loud it made the beer bottles in the cooler rattle, but neither of them moved to look. Ronan nodded at the cooler behind him, asked if she wanted a cold IPA, said he knew a quiet spot on the edge of the fairgrounds where they could avoid the chaos and the terrible cover band that was setting up by the stage. She smiled, that same crinkly-eyed smile, and nodded, tucking that loose strand of hair behind her ear.
They walked side by side across the dry, crunchy grass, the sunset painting the Bitterroot Mountains pink and tangerine at the edges, crickets starting to chirp in the tall weeds at the edge of the field. He sat down on a splintered wooden bench next to her, and when her knee brushed his under the edge, he didn’t shift his leg away. He twisted the cap off her beer, handed it to her, and let his fingers linger against hers for half a beat longer than necessary.
