Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired commercial salmon fishing captain, had only shown up to the coastal Oregon town’s annual seafood festival to keep his granddaughter happy. She’d begged him for three weeks to enter his smoked salmon chowder in the amateur contest, and when he took third place, he’d ducked into the packed beer tent the second the photo op ended, desperate to escape the small talk of people he’d known for 40 years but still felt too distant from to chat with for longer than 10 seconds. He grabbed a cold IPA from the bartender, turned on his scuffed work boot heel to head for an empty corner, and collided shoulder-first with a woman standing half a foot behind him, spilling a quarter of the beer down the front of her cream linen sun dress.
He froze, already sputtering an apology, grabbing a handful of napkins from the stack by the bar before he even got a good look at her. When he did, he stopped mid-sentence. Her silver hair was braided down her back, a frayed blue jay feather woven into the end, freckles dusted across her nose and sunburnt cheeks, and she was grinning like she’d been waiting for him to do something stupid for years. His knuckle brushed her bare upper arm as he held the napkins out, and he felt the warm, soft give of her skin through the crumpled paper, the scent of wild blackberries and sea salt wrapping around him so thick he could almost taste it. “Easy there, captain,” she said, her voice low and raspy, like she smoked one menthol cigarette a day on her porch after dinner. “You’re the third person to spill a drink on me today. I’m starting to think I should’ve worn a rain jacket.”
Ronan’s first instinct was to apologize again, mumble an excuse about needing to get home to his boat, and bolt. He’d spent 8 years deliberately avoiding any interaction that might lead to something more than surface-level small talk, convinced letting any other woman get close would be a betrayal of Eileen, his wife of 34 years who’d died of ovarian cancer. He’d turned down every blind date his sister had set up, ignored the flirty smiles from the cashier at the grocery store, spent most nights alone on his 42-foot troller, drinking beer and watching the waves roll in. But she didn’t step back, didn’t look away when he held her eye, her dark brown crinkling at the corners like she knew exactly what he was thinking. “Marnie,” she said, holding her hand out. “I run the wild berry jam stand down at the farmers’ market. I’ve bought your chowder every year you’ve entered the contest. Best on the coast, even if those idiot judges only gave you third place this year.”
They talked for 45 minutes in the corner of the tent, the noise of the crowd, fried calamari stands, and cover band fading into background static. She told him her husband had died in a logging accident 7 years prior, that she’d also spent years turning down dates, telling her two adult kids she was “perfectly fine on my own, thank you very much.” He told her about fixing up his troller, the trip he was planning to take up to southeast Alaska next summer with his 14-year-old grandson. Every time she leaned in to laugh at one of his dry, deadpan jokes about terrible festival food and even worse judges, her shoulder brushed his, and he felt that same jolt he’d felt when he first touched her arm, equal parts sharp guilt and something warm and bright he’d thought he’d never feel again. When the bartender started yelling that last call was over, she nodded her head toward the old wooden pier sticking out over the bay, the string lights strung along the rails glowing soft gold in the dusk. “Wanna go sit for a minute?” she asked. “I hate saying goodbye to nice days before the sun goes all the way down.”
Ronan hesitated for half a second, the voice in his head screaming that he was being stupid, that he was going to regret this, that he was cheating on a woman who’d been gone 8 years. But then he looked at her, standing there with the wind blowing strands of silver hair loose from her braid, holding her half-empty glass of rosé, and he nodded. They walked out to the end of the pier, the wood rough and splintered under the soles of his boots, the sound of the waves slapping against the pilings loud enough to drown out the festival music behind them. When they sat down on the weathered bench at the end, she shifted closer until their thighs were pressed together, the thin linen of her dress doing nothing to hide the heat of her leg against his worn denim. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for 6 years,” she said quietly, turning to look at him, her face lit up by the faint glow of the string lights. “I just never had the guts. Figured you were still too hung up on Eileen to even notice anyone else.” He didn’t say anything for a minute, just reached down and laced his calloused, rope-scarred fingers through hers, her hand soft but dotted with tiny scars from berry thorns, and squeezed. “I noticed,” he said.
They sat there until the sun dipped all the way below the horizon, the sky turning deep purple and streaked with tangerine, the harbor seals bobbing in the waves a few feet away making soft, grunting noises. She leaned her head on his shoulder for a minute, and he didn’t stiffen up, didn’t pull away, just rested his cheek against the top of her head, the smell of blackberries and sea salt wrapping around him again. When she lifted her head, she brushed a strand of his gray hair off his forehead, her fingers lingering on his jaw for a beat longer than necessary. “I baked a blackberry pie this morning,” she said. “It’s still sitting on my counter, probably still a little warm. Wanna come over and have a slice?” He didn’t overthink it, didn’t listen to the voice in his head telling him he should go home to his empty boat. He stood up, still holding her hand, and pulled her up next to him. The boardwalk was sticky under their shoes from spilled cotton candy and soda, the festival music still playing faint in the distance, and he walked beside her toward the row of small cottages a few blocks away, his chest lighter than it had been in 8 years.
