Ronan O’Malley, 62, spent 38 years hauling salmon out of the Pacific off Astoria’s coast before he sold his boat two years after his wife Marnie died. His biggest flaw? He’d rather restring 100 rusted fishing reels in his drafty bungalow than step within 10 feet of a crowded community event, convinced any interest in another woman was a betrayal of the 34 years he’d spent with Marnie. The only reason he showed up to the town’s summer food truck festival in the first place was his 82-year-old neighbor banged on his door at 10 a.m., holding a Tupperware of peach cobbler sample, and told him if he didn’t get out of the house that day she’d stop leaving him leftover meatloaf on his porch every Sunday.
He showed up in his faded navy flannel even though the air was 78 degrees and thick with salt, the scar across his left knuckle from a 2019 winch accident still raised and pale when he stuffed his hands in his pockets to avoid bumping anyone. He made a beeline for the cobbler stand he’d heard the neighbor rave about, and was two people back in line when a kid chasing a golden retriever barreled between his legs, sending the iced tea he’d grabbed at the entrance sloshing all over the apron of the woman running the stand.
He stammered out an apology, face hot, already reaching for his wallet to pay for a new apron, and she laughed. It was a rough, warm sound, like the gulls that used to follow his boat back to the dock at dusk. She wiped at the brown tea stain on her cream canvas apron with the back of her hand, and he noticed her knuckles were calloused, a smudge of cinnamon dusted on her left cheek, her eyes the exact color of the Pacific on a rare cloudless July day. “Relax, I’ve had worse spilled on me,” she said, leaning forward a little, her shoulder almost brushing his when she handed him a bowl of cobbler still warm from the oven. “On the house. Apology accepted.” He tried to argue, tried to hand her a 20 dollar bill, and she shook her head, tucking the bill back into his flannel pocket, her fingers brushing his chest for half a second before she pulled away to help the next customer.
He sat on a splintered picnic table 10 feet away, eating the cobbler, and it was better than any dessert he’d had since Marnie’s famous peach pie, the crust buttery, the peaches sweet enough to make his tongue tingle. He kept glancing over at her, and every time he did, she was already looking at him, holding eye contact a beat longer than polite, a tiny smirk playing on her lips when he looked away flustered. A gust of wind off the bay blew her linen scarf, printed with sunflowers, right onto his lap, and he picked it up, the fabric soft, still smelling like cinnamon and coconut lotion, and walked over to hand it to her. Their fingers brushed when she took it from him, and he felt a jolt run up his arm, sharp and warm, like the time he’d touched a frayed live wire on his boat’s control panel when he was 28.
She closed up the stand 20 minutes later, wiping down the counter, and walked over to his table, tucking the scarf around her neck. “You look like the kind of guy who knows the good dive bars around here,” she said, leaning against the edge of the table, her knee brushing his where he sat. “I’ve been wanting to check out that little place on the corner with the Johnny Cash jukebox, but I don’t feel like going alone. Wanna come?” He hesitated for half a second, the old guilt rising up, the voice in his head saying he should go home, that he didn’t deserve to have fun with someone new. Then he remembered Marnie, the week before she died, telling him he’d better not mope around forever once she was gone, that she’d come back to haunt him if he didn’t go out and find someone to make him laugh again. He nodded.
They sat in a vinyl booth at the bar, the jukebox playing *Folsom Prison Blues* low in the background, and she leaned in every time he talked about his fishing days, her knee pressed against his under the table the whole time, no space between them. He told her about Marnie, how she’d run the dockside diner he ate at every morning before he headed out, and she told him about her husband, a park ranger who’d died in a tree fall five years before, how she’d moved to Astoria six months earlier from Idaho because she’d always wanted to live by the ocean. They both cried a little when they realized both their late spouses had hated cilantro so much they’d pick it off every taco they ever ate, then laughed so hard Ronan snort-laughed, something he hadn’t done since he was a teenager.
They walked out of the bar at sunset, the sky pink and orange over the water, the air smelling like salt and jasmine from the bushes lining the sidewalk. She stopped halfway to her car, and brushed a strand of gray hair off his forehead, her palm warm against his skin. “I got a whole crate of peaches from Hood River in my fridge,” she said. “You wanna come over tomorrow and help me can em? I could use an extra pair of hands that know how to handle a knife without slicing their thumb off.” He nodded, no hesitation this time. He tucked the end of her sunflower scarf into her coat pocket when it slipped out, their fingers brushing again, and this time he didn’t pull away. He stood on the curb watching her taillights fade down the street, his chest light, and tucked his hands into his flannel pockets, already planning to stop at the hardware store on his way over the next morning to pick up a new set of canning lids she’d mentioned she needed.
