Elias Voss, 59, swipes sweat off his brow with the back of a calloused, honey-sticky wrist, squinting against the late August sun beating down on his Missoula farmers market stall. He’s spent the seven years since his wife Karen died of ovarian cancer walling himself off from casual connections, convinced any new joy would be a betrayal of the 32 years they had together; these weekly market shifts are the only regular social interaction he allows himself, most limited to grunted thanks for purchases and warnings to kids not to knock over his stacked mason jars of wildflower, clover, and buckwheat honey. He retired from his 27 year career as a wildland fire crew boss three years prior, too stiff in the knees to hike 10 miles a day with a 60 pound pack, and threw all his energy into the 12-hive apiary he and Karen had started as a side project in 2010.
He’s restocking a row of buckwheat honey jars when he sees her out of the corner of his eye, same as he has the past three Saturdays. She’s the new head librarian at the downtown branch, moved to town from Portland three months prior, wears linen dresses that look soft enough to sleep in, always has a smudge of blue ink on her left wrist and a canvas tote slung over one shoulder stuffed with dog-eared paperbacks. She always hangs back at the edge of his stall for five or ten minutes, staring at the hand-painted labels he makes for each jar, before drifting off to the peach stand next door. Today she doesn’t drift. She steps up to the stall, sun catching the silver streaks in her dark hair, and smiles so wide the corners of her eyes crinkle.
He freezes for half a second, then nods, picking up a small wooden sample stick and dipping it into the open test jar of buckwheat honey. “Bold choice, if you’re here for this stuff. Most folks turn their nose up at it, say it’s too earthy, not sweet enough.” When he passes her the stick, their fingers brush; her skin is cool, soft, a stark contrast to his rough, sun-browned knuckles, and he feels a jolt run up his arm he hasn’t felt since Karen was alive. She licks the honey off the stick, hums, and leans in a little closer, the scent of lavender soap and sun-warmed cotton wrapping around him. “I like things that have a little bite to them. Empty sweetness gets boring fast.”
A group of kids chasing a stray dog barrels past the stall before he can respond, slamming into the stack of quart-sized honey jars at the end of the table. Both of them lunge at the same time; she catches one jar against her hip, her shoulder pressing firm against his chest, and he grabs the other before it can shatter on the asphalt. He can feel the steady thud of her heart through the thin fabric of her dress, hear her quiet, flustered laugh as they set the jars back down carefully. “Sorry,” she says, brushing a strand of hair off her face, “I’m always clumsy around things I don’t want to break.”
The line he’d rehearsed in his head a hundred times, the one where he says it’s fine, hands her her change, and sends her on her way, dies in his throat. He holds her gaze, the way she’s biting her lower lip like she’s nervous she overstepped, and the voice in his head that’s been screaming for seven years that he doesn’t deserve to be happy again goes quiet, for the first time since Karen took her last breath. “I noticed you hanging around the past few weeks,” he says, wiping a stray drop of honey off the table edge with a rag. “Figured you were either casing my stall to steal the good honey, or too nervous to say hi.”
She laughs, loud and bright, and leans against the table edge, her knee brushing his through the worn denim of his work pants. “I was nervous. You always look so focused, like you’re somewhere a million miles away. Didn’t want to bother you.” She pauses, taps the jar of buckwheat honey she’s holding. “Also, I didn’t know if you’d think it was weird that I wanted to ask for a buckwheat honey cake recipe. My grandma used to make it for my birthday, and I lost the recipe when I moved.”
He blinks, then grins, a real grin, the kind he hasn’t pulled out since his old crew won the state firefighter chili cookoff in 2018. “Karen’s recipe, actually. She used to bake it every Christmas for the crew. I’ll write it down for you, if you want. Only catch is you have to test it with me. I know a dive bar two blocks from here that serves fried pickles almost as good as hers, and they’ve got cold draft beer on tap. Market closes in 20 minutes.”
She agrees so fast she almost knocks over the honey jar she’s holding, and he bites back a laugh as he rings her up, tucking a free beeswax candle into her bag along with the receipt. By the time he’s loaded the last of his crates into the bed of his beat up 2008 Ford F-150, she’s leaning against the tailgate, flipping through a Raymond Carver collection she pulled out of her tote. He hands her a cold jar of buckwheat honey he’d set aside that morning, the glass dewy against her palm, and when their fingers brush this time, he doesn’t jerk his hand away. They walk toward the bar side by side, the sky bleeding pink and tangerine over the mountains, crickets chirping in the grass along the sidewalk. A calico cat curled up on a nearby porch railing bats at her outstretched hand as they pass, and he laughs when she feigns offense at the tiny scratch on her finger.
