Sixty-two year old Elmo “Mo” Ruggerio leaned against the gnarled oak at the edge of the small-town Syracuse summer beer festival, nursing a hazy IPA he didn’t even like, the calluses on his fingers catching on the ridged edge of the plastic cup. He’d spent 38 years as a U.S. Forest Service fire crew supervisor out in Oregon, had run into burning wildfires for less provocation than coming to this damn thing, but his little sister had begged, said he’d been holed up in his cabin too long since he moved back east last year to be near his 7-year-old granddaughter. His jeans were dusted with grass clippings, the old fire scar wrapping around his left forearm glowed pink in the July sun, and he’d already stashed three vintage fly fishing lures he’d scored from a vendor’s table in the inner pocket of his worn flannel shirt, mentally calculating how much he could flip them for at the flea market next weekend. He was ten seconds from bailing, keys already in his hand, when his boot caught on a tent stake and he stumbled sideways into the mead booth at the end of the row.
A half-full sample glass teetered off the edge of the folding table, and he reached for it at the same time the woman behind the table did. Their hands brushed, hers cool and calloused from hauling 5-gallon buckets of honey, a tiny black bee tattoo inked into the soft skin of her wrist, and she caught the glass half an inch before it shattered on the packed dirt. She was 58, he guessed, silver strands woven through the dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, a smudge of beeswax on her left cheek, wearing a faded flannel that said “Hollow Creek Meadery” across the chest and work boots caked in mud. “Whoa, easy there, cowboy,” she said, her voice rough like she spent too much time yelling over hives and tractors, and she held eye contact with him for two beats longer than polite, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. He felt heat rise up his neck, something he hadn’t felt since his wife died eight years prior, and he fumbled for an apology, suddenly annoyed at himself for even noticing how the sun hit her eyes when she smiled.
He’d spent the last eight years convincing himself that any sort of attraction to anyone else was a betrayal, that widows and widowers got one great love and that was it, that anyone who dated after their spouse died was shallow, selfish. That was the flaw his sister was always nagging him about: he was stubborn to a fault, even when the only person he was hurting was himself. He’d turned down every set up, left every senior mingle before the first round of appetizers came out, spent most nights alone in his cabin retying fishing flies and watching old westerns. But this woman didn’t treat him like a broken old man who needed pity, didn’t ask him about his dead wife within the first two minutes of conversation. She just pushed a sample of blackberry mead across the table at him, said it was on the house for almost taking out her entire display of 2022 reserve, and started talking about the 120 hives she kept up in the hills outside of town.
He took a sip, the sweet, tart blackberry flavor bursting on his tongue, exactly like the honey sticks his wife used to tuck into his fire gear bag before he left for two-week rotations. He didn’t even like sweet drinks, but he finished the whole sample in three sips. The smell of honey and wild clover clung to her shirt, and every time she leaned across the table to grab a bottle for another customer, her shoulder brushed his, the soft fabric of her flannel rubbing against the fire scar on his arm. He found himself sitting down on the wobbly stool next to the tent edge, forgetting all about the drive home, forgetting about the IPA he’d left abandoned by the oak tree. She told him her husband had been a fly fishing guide before he died of a heart attack six years prior, that he’d had the same beat-up 1987 Orvis rod Mo kept propped up in the back of his pickup, that he used to sneak up to the meadow by her hives to fish before the sun came up. Mo told her about fighting the 2017 Eagle Creek fire, about the way pine trees burned so hot they turned to glass, and he didn’t even realize he was talking about his wife until the words were out of his mouth. He tensed up, waiting for that familiar twist of guilt, but it didn’t come.
He stood there for a second, the song wrapping around him, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t hear it and only think about the empty side of his bed. He thought about the way his wife used to sing it off key when she was making pancakes, about the way she’d drag him out to the driveway to dance to it on warm summer nights, and he smiled. He sat back down on the stool, and she looked over at him, that smirk back on her face, and slid another sample of peach mead across the table at him.
His sister wandered over an hour later, her shoes in one hand, a half-empty margarita in the other, and wolf-whistled when she saw him still sitting there. “I knew dragging you here would work,” she said, and he rolled his eyes, but he didn’t deny it. When the festival started wrapping up, the sun dipping low below the hills, painting the sky pink and orange, she scribbled her number on a scrap of paper, added the address of a secret fly fishing spot up by the reservoir, and handed it to him. “My kid’s watching the hives next Saturday,” she said, wiping the beeswax off her cheek with the back of her hand. “If you’re not too busy hiding in your cabin, we could head up there. Bring that Orvis rod.”
He tucked the scrap of paper in his inner pocket, right next to the vintage lures he’d bought earlier, and nodded. He walked to his pickup slowly, the cool evening air hitting his face, and he texted his sister that he didn’t need a ride, that he was fine. He could hear the last of the band’s set drifting across the field, the last notes of “Wild Horses” fading out, and he didn’t feel that heavy, hollow weight in his chest he’d carried for eight years. He unlocked his truck, tossed his empty mead cup in the trash can by the parking lot, and paused for a second to look back at the tent, where she was folding up tablecloths, laughing at something her teenage employee had said. He lifted his hand in a small wave, and she saw him, waved back, that bright smile on her face. He climbed into the driver’s seat, turned the key in the ignition, and the old radio flickered on, playing the opening of a Johnny Cash song his wife used to love. He didn’t change the station.
