Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired commercial salmon fisherman, stood slouched against the side of a garlic butter crab truck at the Astoria Crab Festival, the cold of his plastic spiced cider cup seeping through to his calloused palm. He’d let his old deckhand Mike drag him out that afternoon under threat of cutting off his access to the bulk fishing net supplies Mike sourced at a discount, and he’d been scowling at the crowd of loud tourists and overzealous local vendors for 45 minutes straight, already mapping the fastest route back to his quiet cottage a block off the shore. His biggest flaw, one he’d owned since he was 18 and first stepped on a fishing boat, was that he shut everyone out the second he felt even a flicker of vulnerability; he’d not let anyone get close since his wife Moira passed from ovarian cancer eight years prior, turning down every dinner invite, every half-hearted setup from neighbors, every chance to stop hiding behind the nets he mended for charter boats for extra cash.
He was just about to tell Mike he was bailing when he felt a light, deliberate tap on his left shoulder. He turned, half-ready to snap at a tourist asking for directions, and came face to face with Elara Voss, his next door neighbor of three months who he’d only ever caught glimpses of through his kitchen window, hauling boxes of used books into the hatchback she drove to the downtown bookstore she ran. She was wearing a well-worn navy flannel over a faded yellow sundress, rubber rain boots caked in mud from the festival’s grassy parking lot, loose strands of chestnut hair stuck to her freckled forehead from the fine coastal mist hanging in the air. She held a paper plate with two crab cakes, one of them half-eaten, and she grinned when she saw him, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “I thought that was you. I see you out on your porch mending nets at 5 a.m. most days. You look like you hate every second of this event, same as me.”
Before he could think of a response, a group of drunk college kids shouldered past her, and she stumbled forward, a dollop of remoulade slipping off her crab cake and landing on the exposed skin of his wrist, just above the frayed cuff of his work jacket. She swore under her breath, fished a crumpled napkin out of her jeans pocket, and dabbed at the sauce, her fingers warm and slightly rough from years of turning old book pages, the contact sending a sharp, unexpected jolt up his arm. He froze. He’d not let a woman touch him, even accidentally, since Moira’s funeral. He should step back, he knew. Elara was the ex-wife of Jake Carter, his former lead deckhand who he’d had a brutal falling out with 12 years prior, when a broken winch Jake had failed to repair cost them an entire season’s worth of salmon, $120,000 down the drain and a near bankruptcy for Ronan. They hadn’t spoken since, and Ronan had spent years writing off anyone tied to Jake as off-limits, even if he’d heard through the grapevine Elara had left Jake two years after the fight, when he’d moved to Ketchikan to work on an Alaskan fishing trawler and never came back.
He didn’t step back. He stayed where he was, watching her as she finished wiping the sauce off his wrist, her thumb brushing the thin, silvery scar on his forearm from a net accident when he was 40, and she held his gaze for three full beats longer than was polite, no awkward look away, no nervous laugh. “That’s a fishing scar, right?” she said, nodding at the mark. “I’ve seen enough of those on Jake’s hands to know. I always wondered what yours was from.”
He found himself talking before he could stop himself, telling her the story of the 300-pound halibut that had caught in the net, the line snapping and slicing his arm open 30 miles off the coast, Jake patching him up with a first aid kit and a bottle of whiskey before they made it back to shore. They walked away from the festival crowd, down the wooden pier that jutted out over the Columbia River, the sound of seagulls and live bluegrass from the festival stage fading behind them, the cold mist biting at their cheeks, their shoulders brushing every three or four steps, neither of them shifting away. He told her about Moira, about how he’d spent the last eight years convinced that even talking to another woman meant he was betraying her, about how he’d turned down every invite to any community event until Mike had strong-armed him that day. She told him about her sister, who’d died in a car crash when she was 30, how she’d carried that guilt for a decade, convinced she could have talked her out of driving that night, how she’d only started feeling like she was allowed to be happy again three years prior, when she bought the bookstore.
They stopped at the end of the pier, leaning against the weathered rail, and she turned to face him, her hip brushing his, the scent of lavender shampoo and Old Bay clinging to her clothes. “I’ve wanted to come over and knock on your door for weeks,” she said, soft enough that only he could hear it over the crash of the waves against the pier supports. “I just didn’t want to bother you, when you always looked so wrapped up in your own head.”
He felt the knot he’d carried in his chest for eight years loosen, just a little. The guilt was still there, the faint voice in his head saying he shouldn’t be doing this, that he was breaking some unspoken rule, but it was quieter than it had ever been, drowned out by the warmth of her arm pressed against his, the way she was looking at him like he wasn’t just the grumpy old fisherman next door. He thought of the bottle of 12-year Irish whiskey his brother had sent him from Dublin for his birthday three months prior, sitting unopened on his kitchen counter, the old photo album under his bed full of pictures of his fishing trips, of Moira laughing on the deck of his boat.
“C’mon back to my place,” he said, the words coming out easier than he expected. “I got a good bottle of whiskey, and I can show you the rest of the fishing scar stories, if you want.”
She smiled, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and nodded. They walked back toward the row of cottages, their hands brushing twice as they turned off the pier, before he laced his fingers through hers, her palm warm and steady against his even through the sharp chill of the coastal wind.
