Moe Pritchard is 67, spent 32 years working as a lighthouse keeper on Michigan’s Isle Royale before he retired south to the hilly edge of western North Carolina eight years back, right after his wife Elaine passed. His worst flaw is he’d rather collapse from a bad knee than ask anyone for a hand, a habit he picked up spending weeks at a stretch alone on the island with nothing but a Coast Guard radio and a flock of squawking seagulls for company. Most Fridays he drags himself to the volunteer fire department fish fry, mostly for the crispy catfish, partly to avoid the quiet of his garage where he restores vintage saltwater fishing reels until his eyes burn. That July Friday the air hung thick enough to sip, heavy with the smell of fried cornmeal and vinegar coleslaw, and the screen door of the fire hall slammed so hard behind him it rattled the neon beer sign above the bar.
He was three steps from the serving line when his right knee, worn thin from decades climbing 127 lighthouse stairs twice a day, buckled. He stumbled forward, tray in hand, and a pair of small, calloused hands caught his elbow hard enough to steady him before he face-planted into a vat of hushpuppies. When he looked up, it was Lila Mae Carter, his next door neighbor of three months, the one he’d gone out of his way to avoid since he’d caught himself staring at her through his garage screen as she pulled weeds in her rose bed two weeks prior. She was 39, a traveling book binder who’d moved to town to care for her 82-year-old grandma, Moe’s old bridge partner, and every small town gossip within a five-mile radius had already made it clear a man his age had no business noticing the way her sun-bleached auburn hair curled at the nape of her neck. He’d been disgusted with himself for the past two weeks, angry that after eight years of feeling nothing but quiet grief, some woman half his age could make his palms sweat like a teenager at a 1970s sock hop.
“You okay there, Moe?” Her voice was low, rough around the edges from a lifetime of smoking menthols, and she was standing so close he could smell lavender laundry soap mixed with the flour dusting her flannel shirt—she’d been the one baking cornbread for the fry all afternoon, he remembered. His first instinct was to yank his arm away, grumble that he was fine, that he didn’t need help, but the pad of her thumb was brushing the bare skin of his forearm where his sleeve had ridden up, and the words died in his throat. He nodded instead, let her take half the weight of his tray as they walked to an empty picnic table on the back porch, far away from the prying eyes of the regulars inside.
They sat side by side on the splintered wooden bench, their knees brushing every time one of them shifted, and he learned she was the one leaving jars of spicy pickled okra on his front porch every Sunday, not Mrs. Henderson down the street like he’d assumed. She teased him about the stack of dented brass reels he kept on his workbench, said she’d watched him spend three hours the previous Saturday taking apart the same 1950s Penn reel twice because he’d dropped a tiny screw in the sawdust. He found himself laughing, a rough, rusty sound he hadn’t heard come out of his own mouth in years, and he didn’t even pull away when she leaned over to steal a bite of his catfish, her shoulder pressed firm to his, her elbow brushing his bicep as she reached for his fork.
When she asked him if he wanted to drive up to the bluegrass festival in Boone with her the next Saturday, he froze. His first thought was the whispers, the side eyes, the old biddies at the bridge club who’d call his late wife’s cousin before the end of the day to tattle. He looked over at her, and she was biting her lower lip, her hazel eyes darting away for half a second like she was nervous he’d say no, and he realized he didn’t give a damn what anyone said. He’d spent eight years hiding from the world, tending to his reels and his grief, and he was tired of it. “Yeah,” he said, quiet enough only she could hear, and she grinned so wide the dimple in her left cheek showed. She reached over, wiped a fleck of cornmeal breading off his chin with her thumb, the callus on the tip of it catching on the gray stubble on his jaw, and left her hand there for two full beats before she pulled back.
They left the fire hall an hour later, her hand curled around his elbow to steady him as he walked down the rickety wooden steps to the parking lot. Fireflies blinked in the oak trees lining the drive, and the fire hall bell rang once for the 9 o’clock check, loud enough to rattle the windows of his old Ford F-150. He opened the passenger door for her, and before she climbed in, she leaned up, pressed a soft, warm kiss to the corner of his mouth, the faint taste of sweet tea and peppermint on her lips. He reached up to touch the spot where her mouth had been as she slid into the seat, and he didn’t even notice the ache in his knee when he walked around to the driver’s side.
