Manny Ruiz is 61, spent 32 years as a freight train brakeman running the line between Spokane and Missoula, retired three years back after a knee replacement put him on light duty he couldn’t be bothered to tolerate. His biggest flaw, if you ask the few old rail crew friends he still talks to, is that he’s clung to the stupid, self-imposed rule that no woman would ever cross the threshold of his house again after his wife Elaina died of ovarian cancer eight years prior. He’d turned down every set-up, every casual invitation from widows at the local Catholic parish, every flirty comment from the cashier at the hardware store, convinced even a cup of coffee with someone else was a betrayal of the 32 years he and Elaina had built together.
He’s at the VFW post just outside Airway Heights for the weekly Friday fish fry, same scuffed plastic booth he’s claimed for the last decade, right by the jukebox that only plays pre-1990 country, when he spots her in the serving line. He doesn’t recognize her at first, squinting past the steam rising off the vats of battered cod, until she calls his name, loud enough to cut through the roar of old veterans yelling about college football scores. It’s Clara, Elaina’s younger cousin, the one who’d driven up from Portland for the funeral, who’d brought him a jar of her homemade habanero salsa when all everyone else brought was soggy casseroles he couldn’t bring himself to eat for months. She’s 54 now, silver streaks running through the dark curls she’d pulled back in a loose braid, wearing a faded VFW volunteer t-shirt that hits just above the curve of her hip, scuffed white work boots on her feet.
She hands him his plate of cod, vinegar-dressed coleslaw, and a side of extra tartar sauce, and their fingers brush when she passes it over. He feels the rough callus on the pad of her thumb, the same one she’d told him about at the funeral, from planting heirloom tomatoes in her backyard every summer, digging in the dirt for hours at a time. His skin tingles, and he yanks his hand back like he’s touched a hot stove, immediately hating himself for the overreaction. She doesn’t comment, just smirks, the corner of her hazel eyes crinkling like she knows exactly what’s running through his thick, stubborn head.
He sits down at his booth, picks at his fish, can’t stop glancing over at her where she’s wiping down the counter, laughing at a dirty joke one of the 92-year-old WWII vets is telling. He’s disgusted with himself, first off, for even noticing how her jeans fit, how the light catches the silver in her hair, how the scent of her lavender hand lotion carries across the room even over the thick smell of fried grease and cheap draft beer. She’s Elaina’s cousin, for Christ’s sake, family, and he’d spent 30 years thinking of her as the annoying kid sister who’d crash their summer cookouts and steal beer from his cooler when no one was looking. But somewhere between the funeral and now, she’d grown into someone who makes his chest feel tight, like he’s 17 again and fumbling through asking a girl to prom for the first time.
She makes her way over to his booth 20 minutes later, carrying two extra hushpuppies on a crumpled paper napkin, and slides into the seat across from him without asking. Her knee brushes his under the table, denim against denim, and he doesn’t move his leg this time. “Remember you used to hide these from Elaina because she said they gave you brutal heartburn?” she says, pushing the napkin across the Formica table, and her voice is soft now, no teasing edge to it. He nods, picks one up, dips it in a little honey he keeps tucked in his jacket pocket for this exact reason, takes a bite. It’s crispy on the outside, fluffy and salty inside, exactly how he likes them.
He’s halfway through asking her what she’s doing back in eastern Washington when she cuts him off, leans in across the table, so close he can smell the spearmint gum she’s chewing, hear the low drawl of Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues* playing from the jukebox behind them. “Elaina made me promise, right before she died, that if you ever shut yourself off from everyone, I’d come check on you. She said you’d be too stubborn to ask for help, that you’d rather rot alone in that house with your stupid model train sets than admit you were lonely.”
The words hit him like a punch to the gut. He’d spent eight years convinced he was honoring Elaina by staying alone, turning down every chance at connection, and she’d been planning this the whole time. The heavy, twisting guilt he’d been carrying around for the last hour, for noticing Clara, for feeling that stupid, giddy spark in his chest, melts away so fast he feels lightheaded. He tells her he’s been scared, that every time he even thought about talking to another woman, he felt like he was cheating, like Elaina would be furious with him. She laughs, soft, reaches across the table, rests her hand on top of his for a few seconds, her palm warm against his calloused knuckles, rough from 30 years of tightening rail couplings and gluing tiny model train parts. “She’d be mad you spent eight years eating frozen TV dinners and talking to plastic trains instead of letting someone keep you company,” she says, and there’s no pity in her voice, just plain, unvarnished honesty.
They talk for another hour, until the VFW staff starts stacking chairs and turning off the neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign in the front window, kicking the last few stragglers out. He walks her out to her beat-up 2008 Ford pickup, the September air cool enough that he can see his breath when he exhales, crickets chirping loud in the grass by the parking lot. He asks her if she wants to come over to his place tomorrow, see the 1957 Union Pacific locomotive model he just finished restoring after six months of work, that he has a cooler of sweet iced tea in the fridge and a peach pie he baked the night before, from the peaches he picked off the tree in his backyard. She says yes, pulls a blue ballpoint pen out of her jacket pocket, scribbles her cell number on a napkin from the fish fry, tucks it into the breast pocket of his worn gray flannel shirt, her fingers brushing the fabric over his chest for a beat longer than necessary.
She climbs into her pickup, rolls the window down, yells that she’ll be there at 2, before she pulls out of the parking lot. Manny stands there for a minute, his hand pressed flat to the pocket where the napkin is tucked, watching her taillights fade down the two-lane road.
