Rudy Galvan is 62, retired high school shop teacher, spends 40 hours a week cutting cedar and drilling drainage holes for custom birdhouses he sells out of his garage in suburban Cleveland. His only flaw, if you ask the few friends he still talks to, is that he’s spent the seven years since his wife died treating any social interaction that doesn’t involve power tools or bird identification as a risk not worth taking. He still wears her faded red plaid flannel when he works, even in 85-degree heat, and the scar splitting his left knuckle from a 1979 table saw accident is still pale and raised across his skin.
He’s at the weekly farmers market in downtown Elyria dropping off a batch of bluebird houses for the local nature conservancy booth when it happens. He’s half-walking, half-checking a text from his grandkid about a soccer game, and his elbow catches a stack of plastic honey jars sitting on the edge of the next booth over. The iced tea he’s been sipping sloshes out of its cup, all over the top layer of honey labels, and half the stack teeters off the edge before he grabs it, fumbling, his knuckles scraping the wooden table edge.
The woman behind the booth doesn’t yell. She laughs, a low, rough sound like she’s spent too many years yelling over wind in apple orchards, and leans around the table to help him catch the last jar before it hits the asphalt. She’s 58, sun-bleached auburn hair streaked with gray at the temples, calluses on the heels of both hands, a tiny half-healed bee sting on the side of her forearm. Her name tag says Marnie, beekeeper, Lorain County.
Rudy is immediately mortified. He rambles out apologies, digging for crumpled paper towels in his pocket, and leans back an extra inch to make sure he doesn’t invade her space, like even being too close will make him mess up more. He’s already mentally calculating how much it will cost to replace the ruined labels, how fast he can get out of there before he does something even dumber, before he has to admit that he’s been staring at the way her sun freckles stretch across the bridge of her nose when she grins.
She waves off his apologies, takes the paper towels from him, and their fingers brush when she does. The contact is light, just the side of her wrist against his, but Rudy feels it all the way up his arm, hot and sharp, and he yanks his hand back like he touched a live wire. He’s disgusted with himself for half a second, like even noticing how nice her skin feels is a betrayal of his wife, like he’s some stupid teenager fumbling at a drive-in movie instead of a grown man who’s been married 32 years and buried the love of his life.
The hum of the market buzzes around them: kids yelling for kettle corn, a bluegrass band picking a Johnny Cash cover two booths over, the sharp smell of cut watermelon and fresh bread mixing with the thick, sweet scent of clover honey coming off her jars. She dabs at the labels, says the glue is water-resistant, no harm done, and holds up a jar of wildflower honey to show him, tilting it so the golden liquid catches the sun. She says she’s been looking for someone to make bee-friendly birdhouses for her orchard, ones that don’t have perches that let sparrows knock out native songbird eggs, and leans in a little when she talks, close enough that Rudy can smell the lavender lip balm she’s wearing.
He hesitates, his throat tight, and for a second he’s ready to make an excuse: he’s too busy, he doesn’t take custom orders for people he doesn’t know, he has to get home to sand a batch of wren houses before the weekend. But then she points at the scar on his left knuckle, asks him how he got it, and when he tells her about the table saw accident, the first bird feeder he ever made for his wife when they were dating, she touches the scar lightly with the tip of her finger. He doesn’t flinch this time.
The conflicting feelings crash into him all at once: guilt sharp as a chisel edge, curiosity soft as down feathers, the stupid, giddy excitement he hasn’t felt since he was 17 and asked his wife to prom. He stops overthinking it, stops listing all the reasons he should turn around and leave, and holds up the bluebird house he was holding when he spilled the tea. He says he can tweak the design for her orchard, no extra charge, and asks her if she likes fried perch. There’s a shack 10 minutes down the road that does all-you-can-eat on Thursdays, he says, and he’s got a cooler of cold root beer in his truck if she doesn’t drink beer.
She grins, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and slings her canvas bag over her shoulder. She grabs a jar of raw honey from the back of her booth, shoves it in his free hand, and says she loves fried perch, as long as he doesn’t spill iced tea on her dinner. They walk toward the parking lot together, Rudy carrying his stack of birdhouses, Marnie carrying half a crate of leftover honey jars, and she bumps her shoulder against his when they step off the curb, warm and solid against his side. He doesn’t step away. The sun is warm on the back of his neck, and the bluebird house under his arm smells like fresh cut cedar, and for the first time in seven years, he doesn’t feel like he’s just passing time.
