Moe Pritchard, 62, retired Cleveland water department fire hydrant maintenance foreman, leaned against the splintered oak picnic table at the local fire station’s annual charity fish fry, picking at a plate of crumbly fried catfish he hadn’t wanted in the first place. He’d only shown up because three of his old crew had banged on his door at 8 a.m. that Saturday, threatening to drag him out by the scruff of his faded gray work flannel if he tried to hide out at home again. Three years out from his wife Linda’s death from ovarian cancer, he’d gotten real good at hiding: only left the house to fish alone off the breakwall at Edgewater Park, or hit the hardware store for parts for the old pickup he was restoring, or pick up frozen meatloaf dinners from the grocery store down the street. He hated small talk, hated the way people’s eyes softened when they asked how he was holding up, hated the quiet weight of pity that settled over any room he walked into. He was half a second from tossing the half-eaten plate in the trash and bailing when a shadow fell over his table.
Elara Marlow, 58, owner of the custom embroidery shop on Main Street that stitched logos for every high school sports team within 20 miles, held out a frosty can of root beer, condensation beading down the aluminum. Her sunflower-print sundress brushed his calf when she stepped closer, six inches away, closer than anyone who wasn’t a cashier had stood to him in two years. He recognized her immediately: she was Joe Marlow’s widow, Joe had been a ladder company captain for 27 years, used to leave Moe cold Gatorades at hydrant repair sites back when Moe was still working, raving that Moe could fix a busted valve faster than any guy in the state. Her fingers brushed his when he took the root beer, warm and calloused from running embroidery machines all day, and Moe’s chest tightened so sharp he almost dropped the can. He felt a hot, sharp twist of guilt in his gut immediately, like he was doing something dirty, something that betrayed Linda, even though all he’d done was take a soda from a woman he’d known for 15 years.
She sat down on the bench across from him, leaning forward so she could be heard over the yells of kids chasing each other around the bounce house and the crackle of the charcoal grills 20 feet away. She smelled like lavender hand cream and fried sweet corn, and when she laughed at the story he told about Joe once tripping over a hydrant wrench and landing in a puddle of mud right before a department inspection, her smile crinkled the corners of her hazel eyes so deep they looked like they held all the sun of that late August afternoon. He showed her the thick, silvery scar snaking up his left forearm, from a hydrant explosion in 2011 that sent a shard of iron flying into his arm, and she leaned across the table, her index finger brushing the raised edge of the scar so lightly it sent a shiver up his spine. Joe had the exact same scar, she said, from a house fire in 2009, a piece of drywall beam had sliced his arm open when he was carrying a kid out. Moe’s internal voice was screaming at him to leave, to go home, to stop letting himself feel this light, this unburdened, but he couldn’t make himself stand up.
When the raffle announcer called their number, Elara grabbed his hand without thinking, her palm warm and firm against his, and yelled so loud her voice cracked. They’d bought two tickets together 20 minutes earlier, neither of them paying attention, and they’d won the grand prize: a three-day guided fishing charter on Lake Erie, leaving the first weekend of September. Moe froze, his hand still in hers, every thought in his head short-circuiting. He hadn’t fished with anyone but his old crew in 40 years, let alone a woman, let alone a woman who made his chest feel light for the first time since Linda died. The guilt hit him again, hard, but then he looked at Elara, her face flushed with excitement, her hand still wrapped around his, and he remembered the last thing Linda had said to him, in the hospice bed, before she died: don’t you dare sit around and waste the rest of your life being sad for me. He laughed, a real, loud laugh that made his ribs ache, and squeezed her hand back. He knew all the best walleye spots on the western basin, he said, the charter captain was gonna be real impressed.
She wrote her cell number on the back of an embroidery shop business card, pressing it into his palm with her thumb brushing his knuckle before she walked to her car. He stood in the parking lot long after she drove away, holding the card in his hand, the root beer can still sweating in his other hand, the smell of lavender still lingering in the air around him. He didn’t drive straight home when he got in his truck. He turned left instead of right at the stop sign, heading for the bait and tackle shop out on Route 6, to buy new 10-pound test line for his favorite fishing rod, already mentally mapping the quiet coves he’d wanted to show someone for years.
