Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired Puget Sound ferry chief engineer, leans back on the splintered picnic table bench and twists the cap off his second IPA, cold metal biting into his calloused palm. He’d spent three hours buffing the chrome on his 1972 Ford F-100 for the neighborhood classic car show that afternoon, and the sunburn on the back of his neck thrums faintly under his faded ferry crew cap. The beer garden reeks of grilled bratwurst, hop resin, and faint diesel from vintage trucks idling near the exit, every table packed with people yelling over a cover band’s sloppy Tom Petty rendition.
He’s halfway through his beer when a shadow falls across his table. “Mind if I sit? Every other spot’s taken by guys arguing about carburetor sizes.” The voice is familiar, warm, and when he looks up he recognizes Clara Bennett, his old shift supervisor Jake Carter’s ex-wife. He’d not talked to her in close to 10 years, not since Jake left her for a 28-year-old deckhand and moved to Arizona, and he’d always stuck to the unwritten crew rule that you didn’t fraternize with a coworker’s ex, even after divorce. He nods, not trusting his voice, and shifts his stack of truck show brochures to make room.
She slides onto the bench across from him, setting a half-full rosé glass on the sticky tabletop, and her forearm brushes his when she reaches for a napkin. The contact is light, accidental, but he flinches like he’s touched a live wire. She smells like coconut sunscreen, lemon furniture polish, and faint warm vanilla perfume that hangs between them, and he has to actively stop himself from leaning in to breathe it in again. He’s not dated, not even flirted, since his wife Eileen died of ovarian cancer eight years prior, convinced any new connection would betray their 34 years together. He’d turned down setups from his sister, old crewmates, even the librarian at the maritime museum where he volunteers three days a week, and he’d grown comfortable in his quiet, predictable routine.
Clara teases him first, pointing out he still tucks his flannel into his work boots the same way he did at old ferry crew picnics. She remembers he brought Eileen’s lemon bars to every holiday potluck, that he once fixed Jake’s busted lawnmower for free after Jake ran it over a tree root. He finds himself talking more than he has in months, telling her about dropping the F-100’s carburetor on his foot two weeks prior, the model ferry he’s building for the museum’s kid’s corner, his daughter’s new baby in Portland he’s planning to visit next month.
When a guy in a neon fanny pack trips over a curb and spills a full beer pitcher all over his shirt, Clara leans across the table to laugh, her shoulder pressing fully against his, wavy auburn hair brushing the edge of his ear. He doesn’t pull away. For the first time all night, the quiet guilt humming in the back of his head since she sat down fades, replaced by a warm light buzz that’s only half from the IPA. She admits she’s stopped by the museum every other Saturday for three months, hoping to run into him, but was scared he’d shut her down, still think she’s off-limits. He tells her about the guilt, how he’d convinced himself Eileen would be angry if he so much as had a casual conversation with another woman.
Clara snorts, tapping her nail against her wine glass. “Eileen told me at the 2014 crew picnic that if she ever went first, she’d haunt your ass until you stopped moping and found someone to go to car shows with. She hated that you spent every weekend alone in the garage.” The words hit him soft but sure, and he knows she’s right. Eileen had always teased him for being stubborn, for letting loyalty turn into self-sabotage.
She grabs a napkin, scribbles her phone number on it in sparkly purple pen, slides it across the table. “I picked up 1960s ferry engine gauges at an estate sale last weekend, the set you’ve been looking for that model you’re building. Meet me at the 6th Street diner at 9 tomorrow, I’ll bring them, you buy me pancakes.”
He tucks the napkin into his flannel breast pocket, fingers brushing the worn edge of Eileen’s old wedding photo he keeps there, and feels no familiar twist of guilt when he smiles back. He watches her walk to her beat-up 2008 Subaru, the hem of her linen dress fluttering in the evening breeze, and for the first time in eight years, he counts the hours until morning instead of the days until his next obligation.
