Moe Sorrentino, 62, spent 38 years walking rural mail routes outside Erie, Pennsylvania, before retiring to carve custom wooden duck decoys full time out of his cinder block garage. His worst flaw, the one his ex-wife screamed about during their 2020 divorce, was that he’d hold a petty grudge longer than he’d hold one against a raccoon that raided his bird feeder. He’d avoided VFW Post 470’s Friday fish fry for two solid years, ever since his ex started bringing her new retired lineman boyfriend to the weekly event, making a point of kissing him right by the pickle barrel where Moe always stood to fill his plate. The only reason he showed up this crisp October Friday was his old route partner Jerry had texted him three times that morning begging him to come, said there was a batch of his favorite maple-glazed hushpuppies on the menu.
He was leaning against the industrial beer cooler, peeling the label off a sweating Yuengling can, salt from fried cod crusted on his thumb, when someone bumped hard into his shoulder. A paper plate tilted, a single golden hushpuppy slipped off the edge, and he caught it one-handed before it hit the scuffed linoleum. When he looked up, he froze. It was Lena Voss, his ex-wife’s younger half-sister, 54, the one who’d moved out to Ohio right after his wedding and barely came around for family events after that. She wore a faded green wool cardigan, jeans with a hole at the knee, and mud-caked work boots, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid streaked with the same silver Moe had started noticing in his own beard five years prior.
She laughed, warm and loud, over the roar of the crowd yelling at the Penn State game playing on the crackling TV above the bar. “You still got those fast mail carrier reflexes, huh?” She stepped closer, her shoulder brushing his bicep, so they didn’t get jostled by a group of older guys carrying a case of beer to the back table. Moe’s throat went dry. He’d always thought Lena was off-limits, even before the divorce, even when she’d flirted with him at his wedding reception when she was 22 and drunk on spiked punch, even after the papers were signed. It felt wrong, like crossing a line no one had drawn but everyone knew existed.
He handed her the hushpuppy, their fingers brushing for half a second, her skin softer than he expected, calloused at the fingertips like she worked with her hands too. “Didn’t think you were in town,” he said, wiping his palm on the leg of his flannel shirt, trying to sound casual. She took a bite of the hushpuppy, crumbs sticking to her lower lip, and held eye contact while she chewed. “Mom’s having knee surgery next week, came up to help out. Knew the fish fry was on, figured I’d swing by. Also,” she tilted her head, a little smirk playing at her mouth, “I heard you’ve been selling those decoys online. I’ve bought three over the past year. The canvasback you did last spring is on my fireplace mantel right now.”
Moe blinked. He’d never looked at his Etsy buyer names, too focused on getting cedar grain just right, the paint on duck wings matching the exact iridescent purple he’d seen on a canvasback out on Presque Isle Bay the winter before. He felt a flutter in his chest he hadn’t felt since he was 20 and asking his first girlfriend out to the drive-in. Then guilt hit, sharp and cold, like he was doing something that would get him in trouble. “Your sister’s not here, is she?” he asked before he could stop himself.
Lena snort-laughed, leaning in even closer, so he could smell lavender perfume mixed with fried oil and vinegar from the coleslaw bar. “Relax. She and her lineman boyfriend are in Fort Myers for the month, chasing 80 degree weather and complaining about traffic. I haven’t talked to her in six months, anyway. We fought over the will when dad died last year. Family stuff.” Relief hit Moe so hard he almost laughed out loud. He’d spent two years avoiding this place, avoiding any mention of his ex, and the one person he thought he could never have a conversation with was standing right next to him, telling him the only barrier between them was gone.
They talked for 45 minutes, leaning against the cooler, ignoring everyone else. She ran a small horse rescue outside Meadville, had 12 horses on her property, lived alone in a farmhouse left to her by her dad. He told her about the decoy he was working on now, a red-breasted merganser he’d been chipping away at for three weeks, wood from an old oak tree that fell in his yard during a summer storm. When the hall started clearing out, lights dimming, he asked if she wanted to follow him back to his place, see the decoy, have a glass of spiced apple cider he’d left simmering on the stove that morning. She said yes before he even finished the sentence.
His garage was strung with warm yellow string lights, air thick with cedar and linseed oil, the half-carved merganser sitting on his workbench under a desk lamp. She walked over to it, leaning in to run her index finger along the smooth curve of the duck’s head, her arm brushing his chest when he stepped up next to her to point out the grain pattern he’d matched to the bird’s crest. “I’ve had a crush on you since you fixed my flat tire in the parking lot after your wedding reception, you know that?” she said, tilting her chin up to look at him, her eyes dark in the low light.
He turned off the workbench lamp, took her hand, and led her through the side door into his cottage, where the cider bubbled soft on the stove and the heat was cranked just high enough to chase off the October chill.
