Ronan O’Malley is 62, spent 28 years keeping the Point Iroquois lighthouse on Lake Superior’s southern shore before he retired two years prior. His biggest flaw is that he’s forgotten how to be around people; 12 years after his wife died in a snowmobile crash, he still avoids most small town events, only showing up to this year’s fall harvest festival because his 16-year-old niece begged him to enter his famous smoked whitefish dip in the appetizer contest. He planned to drop the crockpot off, grab a single Oktoberfest ale from the beer tent, and hightail it back to his cabin 15 miles outside town before anyone could corner him with questions about how he’s holding up, or the new rumors flying around the county.
He’s halfway through his ale, leaning against a splintered wooden tent pole, when he spots her. Clara Bennett is 58, the new county extension agent who moved up from Chicago six months prior, and the whole town has been whispering about her since she arrived: left her husband of 30 years without warning, sold their suburban home, bought a 40-acre plot of overgrown orchard on the edge of the national forest, doesn’t go to church, talks back to the county commissioner when he tries to cut the conservation budget. Ronan has steered clear of her so far, not because he buys the gossip that she’s “selfish” or “trouble,” but because he hates drawing any kind of attention to himself, and being seen with her would definitely turn heads.
He spills a splash of ale on his work boots when he shifts his weight, reaches for a stack of napkins on the table beside him, and his forearm brushes hers. Her flannel shirt is soft, worn thin at the cuff, and she smells like pine sap and cinnamon gum. She laughs, not the tight, polite laugh most people give him when they realize he doesn’t want to chat, but a loud, throaty one that crinkles the corners of her hazel eyes, flecked with gold where the afternoon sun cuts through the tent’s canvas slits. “You’re the guy with the whitefish dip, right?” she says, holding his gaze a beat longer than standard polite interaction allows. “My assistant brought a container of it to the office last week, I ate half of it for lunch. Tasted like the lake, if the lake was seasoned perfectly.”
Ronan’s first instinct is to mumble a thanks and leave. He can feel Mrs. Henderson from the post office staring at them from across the tent, already mentally drafting the gossip she’ll spread at the diner tomorrow. But something stops him. He nods, leans against the table instead of heading for the exit. They talk for 20 minutes, first about the dip, then about the lighthouse, then about the apple orchard she’s been trying to restore. Their shoulders brush when they step around a toddler chasing a baby goat through the tent, and her hand knocks against his when they both reach for a free caramel apple sample on the table between them. He notices the callus on her index finger from hours of pruning apple trees, she notices the thin, silvery scar wrapping around his left wrist from when he slipped fixing the lighthouse lens in a January storm 18 years ago.
When the contest winners are announced, he doesn’t even stay to hear if he placed. He follows her out of the tent, walking the edge of the festival grounds where the hay bales give way to a split-rail fence overlooking the lake. The wind off the water is sharp, carrying the smell of wood smoke and fallen maple leaves, and he pulls his worn wool work jacket tighter around his shoulders. She sits on the top rail of the fence, boots swinging a foot above the grass, and admits she almost didn’t come to the festival at all, tired of the side-eye and whispers from people who don’t know the first thing about her: how her ex-husband had been cheating on her for 10 years, how she’d dreamed of owning an orchard since she was a kid, how she’d never felt as free as she does here, even with all the gossip.
He sits down beside her, their thighs pressing together through their jeans, and for the first time in 12 years, he tells a stranger about his wife, about how much he hated being a lighthouse keeper for the first year after she died, how he almost quit until he realized the lake was the only place that felt like she was still there. He leans in before he can talk himself out of it, kisses her slow, the taste of caramel and ale mixing on their tongues, her palm warm against the stubble on his jaw. He doesn’t glance over his shoulder to see if anyone is watching. For the first time in over a decade, he doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
When they pull apart, she tears off the back of her food contest entry slip, scribbles her phone number on it in bright blue ink, shoves it into the pocket of his jacket. She tells him the first winter farmers market is the second Saturday in November, and she’s holding a spot for him if he wants to sell his smoked fish. He nods, watches her climb off the fence, wave over her shoulder as she walks toward her beat-up pickup truck parked at the edge of the lot. He pulls the slip of paper out of his pocket, runs his thumb over the smudged numbers, and tucks it back in, safe next to the folded photo of his wife he keeps there. He finishes the last of his ale, pulls his hat down over his ears, and starts walking toward his own truck, already making a mental list of the supplies he’ll need to smoke an extra 20 pounds of whitefish for the market.
