Roy Pritchard, 62, retired cattle auctioneer from eastern Oregon, dragged his boots across the sun-warmed asphalt of the Bend farmers market on a mid-July Saturday, cursing himself for waiting until his last jar of raw honey ran out to brave the crowds. He’d avoided the place for three years straight, ever since a distant cousin cornered him to ask if he’d “started seeing anyone yet” like Linda’s death was a timed trial he was supposed to ace. He only tolerated the feed store and the occasional hardware run, stuck to his 5-acre plot where he tended a half-dozen raised beds and a tiny, experimental beehive he’d installed last spring, talked more to his border collie, Mae, than any human most weeks. His big flaw? He’d spent 8 years clinging to a self-made rule that any flicker of interest in anyone who wasn’t his late wife was a betrayal, even when all his friends told him Linda would’ve kicked his ass for moping this long.
He spotted the honey stall tucked between a jam seller and a guy selling hand-forged horseshoes, and froze. The woman behind the table was Marnie Carter, Linda’s ex-sister-in-law, the one who’d divorced Linda’s deadbeat younger brother three years prior after he ran off with a waitress from the diner in Redmond. He hadn’t seen her since the family Christmas six years back, when he’d left halfway through because everyone kept looking at him like he was a lost puppy. Her auburn hair had more silver streaks than he remembered, pulled back in a messy braid dotted with stray clover petals, her flannel tied around her waist over faded denim overalls, dirt crusted under her fingernails from hauling hive boxes. She looked up, and her face split into the same wide, gap-toothed grin he’d always liked, even back when he’d been too loyal to Linda to admit it.
“Roy Pritchard. I’d know that scowl anywhere,” she said, leaning over the edge of the booth. Her forearm brushed his when she passed him a sample jar of wildflower honey, and he felt the rough callus on her wrist from lifting 50-pound hives, the warmth of her skin seeping through the thin cotton of his work shirt. He’d forgotten how loud her laugh was, how she bit the corner of her lower lip when she was waiting for a response, the same way she had 15 years prior on that family camping trip when he’d pulled her out of the Deschutes River after she’d slipped on a rock, both of them soaked to the bone, staring at each other for three heartbeats before Linda had called them over for s’mores.
They chatted for 20 minutes, standing so close their shoulders bumped every time someone squeezed past the narrow aisle between stalls. She teased him about still drinking that bitter dark roast he’d obsessed over back when he was running auctions every weekend, the one that made Linda make faces every time he brewed a pot. He told her about his tiny backyard hive, and she lit up, reeling off tips for treating mites and where to find the best clover seed to plant for forage, her hand brushing his bicep when she laughed at the story of him getting stung three times on the neck last month when he forgot his veil. Half of him screamed that this was wrong, that he was spitting on Linda’s memory even talking to her this long, the other half couldn’t stop staring at the freckles across her nose, the way the sun caught the gold hoop in her left ear, the fact that she didn’t treat him like he was broken. No one had just teased him, just talked to him like a regular guy, not a widower, in years.
When the crowd thinned out as the market wrapped up, she leaned against the booth, crossed her ankles, and asked if he wanted to grab a beer at the dive bar down the street, the one with the jukebox full of old Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, the one they’d both snuck into after that camping trip when Linda had gone home early with a migraine. He hesitated, his throat tight, and she must’ve seen the conflict on his face, because she softened, reached out to tap his wrist lightly. “Linda told me once, back before she got sick, that if anything ever happened to her, she hoped you’d find someone who didn’t let you mope all the time. She always said we’d get along, if we ever stopped dancing around each other.”
That was the crack in the wall he’d built around himself for 8 years. He nodded, and followed her to her beat-up 4×4, sitting in the passenger seat while she drove, his leg brushing hers across the center console. They slid into the back booth of the bar, she sat on the same side as him so they didn’t have to yell over the jukebox, her shoulder pressed solidly against his the whole time they drank cheap lager and split an order of extra crispy fried pickles. He told her about the last auction he’d run, where he’d gotten so choked up talking about a prize heifer that his voice cracked, and she didn’t pity him, she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and he found himself laughing too, a real, deep laugh that made his chest ache in a good way.
They left when the bar started filling up with the weekend crowd, he walked her to her truck, the air thick with pine and the faint smell of wild sage from the desert outside town, crickets chirping in the grass along the sidewalk. She leaned up first, kissed him on the cheek, her lips soft against his sunburned skin, and he didn’t hesitate before tilting his head down to kiss her properly, slow, her tasting like peach iced tea and beer, her hand fisting lightly in the front of his flannel shirt. He didn’t feel guilty, not even a little bit.
He asked her if she wanted to come over the next afternoon, see his hive, taste the terrible coffee he brewed, and she said yes, grinning that same gap-toothed grin, before she climbed into her truck and drove away. He stood there for a minute, watching her taillights fade down the street, Mae’s head poked out the window of his own truck, whuffing like she knew something good had happened. He tucked the jar of wildflower honey and the free jar of blackberry jam she’d slipped into his bag when he wasn’t looking into his cooler, and smiled for the first time in months without a single twinge of guilt.
