Manny Rios, 59, spent 22 years jumping out of planes into burning old-growth forests before a blown ACL and a widow’s grief pushed him into the quieter work of wildfire mitigation consulting. He lives alone in a cedar cabin 12 miles outside Weaverville, keeps his truck spotless, only accepts jobs that don’t require more than three hours of small talk a week. His biggest flaw? He still talks to his wife Clara’s photograph over morning coffee, and has turned down every half-hearted set-up from local friends so many times they’ve stopped asking.
The September air bit at his cheeks when he wandered into the weekly farmers market off Main Street, the smell of roasted almonds and pine mixing with the sweet tang of pressed cider. He’d come for raw honey for his elderly next door neighbor’s granddaughter, who suffered from brutal fall allergies, but his boots slowed when he spotted the stack of Gravenstein apples at the far end of the row, their skin blushed deep red like the spiced wine Clara used to make every harvest.
The woman behind the stand had sun-streaked brown hair pulled back in a frayed bandana, flannel sleeves rolled to her elbows to show forearms dusted with apple pollen and crisscrossed with tiny scratches from pruning shears. She looked up at him, and he froze. It was Lila, Clara’s baby cousin, the kid who’d hidden in the wedding cake tent and eaten half the buttercream back in 2001. He hadn’t seen her since Clara’s funeral 8 years prior, when she’d hugged him so tight her shoulders shook and told him she was sorry a hundred times before driving back to the Bay Area.
She blinked, then grinned, the same gap between her two front teeth he remembered. “Manny? Holy shit, I thought that was you. I moved up here six months ago, leased the old orchard off Route 3. Everyone said you keep to yourself, I didn’t want to bug you.” She leaned over the rough-cut wooden stand, the hem of her flannel slipping off one shoulder to show a faded tattoo of an apple blossom, and the scent of her lavender soap hit him, sharp and warm, nothing like Clara’s vanilla lotion, and he felt a jolt low in his gut that made him flinch like he’d touched a live wire.
Guilt hit him a second later, hot and sharp. He’d not so much as looked at another woman since Clara’s aneurysm hit, had convinced himself even friendly attention was a betrayal. He nodded, tried to keep his voice even. “Gravensteins look good this year. Clara used to drive two hours for these.”
She picked one up, polished it on her stained canvas apron, held it out to him. When he reached for it, their fingers brushed. Her hands were calloused, rough from hauling bushels and twisting overgrown branches, and the contact lasted half a second too long, both of them pausing before he pulled the apple to his mouth. It crunched when he bit into it, sweet and tart, juice running down his chin, and she laughed, handing him a crumpled paper napkin, their knuckles brushing again as he took it.
“Got a rental cabin up at the edge of the orchard,” she said, leaning her hip against the stand, her eyes not leaving his. “It’s surrounded by overgrown Douglas fir, all dead underbrush piled up around the foundation. I’ve been meaning to call someone to do a fire risk assessment, but all the local guys quoted me way more than I can afford. I heard you do that work on the side.” She tilted her head, the sun catching the gold flecks in her brown eyes, and he felt that pull again, the one he’d spent 8 years shoving down, warring with the voice in his head that said he was supposed to be grieving, supposed to stay alone, that wanting anything else was wrong.
He opened his mouth to say he was booked solid, to turn her down, to grab his apples and run back to his quiet cabin where he didn’t have to feel anything but the dull, familiar weight of grief. Then he noticed the tiny silver scar on her left wrist, the one she’d gotten when she was 12, falling off Clara’s horse at the family ranch, the day Manny had driven her to the ER and sat with her while she got seven stitches, telling her stupid jokes about smokejumper training to keep her from crying.
“I’ve got a free slot tomorrow afternoon,” he said, before he could think better of it. She lit up, grabbing a ballpoint pen from her apron pocket, reaching across the stand to scribble her number on the back of a receipt for a bushel of apples, her arm brushing his chest as she leaned over. She slipped an extra Honeycrisp into his paper bag when he paid for the Gravensteins, her fingers lingering on his for a quiet beat.
He walked back to his truck a few minutes later, the honey jar in one hand, the bag of apples in the other, the crumpled receipt with her number tucked tight into his flannel shirt pocket. The wind picked up, carrying the sound of a local bluegrass band playing near the market entrance, and he smiled, a real unforced smile, the first one he’d had that didn’t feel tied to a memory of Clara in longer than he could remember. He unlocked his truck, tossed the bag onto the passenger seat, and pulled out his phone to text her that he’d be there at 2.
