Moe Pritchard, 58, spent 32 years managing the lower Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge before retiring two years prior, and he’d avoided every county community event for the full 24 months since his wife Linda passed. The only reason he was standing in the pulled pork line at the fire department BBQ fundraiser was his 12-year-old grandson had called the night before, begging him to enter the raffle for a custom 7-foot bass rod. His work boots were caked with pine sap and marsh mud, the brim of his faded navy refuge hat frayed where Linda used to yank it playfully to pull him in for a kiss, and the hickory smoke curling off the grill stung his eyes bad enough he didn’t notice the woman behind him until she slammed into his back.
She was carrying two heaping plates of peach cobbler, tripped over a golden retriever’s leash stretched across the grass, and a dollop of syrupy, cinnamon-dusted fruit splattered right on the left sleeve of his worn work shirt. She yelped an apology, grabbed a handful of napkins off the nearest folding table, and was dabbing at the stain before Moe could even grumble a reflexive “it’s fine.” Her hand was cool, her nails short and unpolished, a smudge of blue ink on her thumb, and she smelled like lavender hand lotion and old paper, like the inside of the tiny county library he’d driven past a hundred times but never stepped foot in. Her hazel eyes, flecked with gold, held his for two beats longer than polite, and Moe froze—he hadn’t been touched by anyone who wasn’t his doctor or one of his kids in three years.
All the other picnic tables were packed, so she gestured to the empty spot across from him at his wobbly plastic table, its surface sticky with spilled soda and barbecue sauce. She introduced herself as Elara Voss, 52, the county’s new librarian, and Moe grumbled his name, half expecting her to launch into the usual “I’m so sorry for your loss” speech he’d gotten so sick of. Instead she laughed, said she already knew who he was, she’d been leaving printed birding survey pamphlets for him at the grocery store checkout for three months, and he’d ignored every single one. He flushed, teased her for stalking a grumpy old hermit, and she teased back that he was the only person within 50 miles who could identify all 17 species of heron that nested in the marsh, and she’d been dying to pick his brain. When a pack of screaming teens bolted past the table, their knees brushed under the plastic, and neither of them moved away.
Moe learned she worked weekend dispatch for the fire department on top of her library shifts, used to be a backcountry ranger in Glacier National Park, and moved south last year after she got sick of digging her truck out of six feet of snow every January. She told him about the 4-foot gator she’d found waddling across the library parking lot two months prior, how she’d called the refuge number listed on the county website and he’d never picked up. He shrugged, said he’d been out in the marsh checking on the blue heron rookery, had no cell service, and felt that familiar twist of guilt in his chest—before Linda died, he’d answered every call, no matter how trivial, but he’d disconnected the refuge forwarding line a month after her funeral, just to stop people from checking in on him. She leaned in when he described the clutch of baby herons that had hatched the week before, her elbow brushing his bicep, and he could smell the peach cobbler on her breath, sweet and warm.
He was halfway through telling her about the first edition copy of *Where the Crawdads Sing* he’d found tucked on a rotting shelf in an abandoned fishing camp deep in the refuge the month prior, how he’d been meaning to donate it to the library but kept forgetting, when the words slipped out before he could stop them. If she was free the next day, he said, like it was no big deal, she could follow him out to his cabin, take a look at the book, and if she wanted, they could take his airboat out to the rookery to see the babies before they fledged. He held his breath, waiting for that harsh voice in his head to yell that he was betraying Linda, that the whole town would gossip about them before the sun even set, waiting for her to turn him down. Instead she grinned, pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket, slid it across the table so he could put his number in, and said she’d be there at 10, and she’d bring extra cobbler. Her fingers brushed his when he handed the phone back, warm now, and that harsh, guilty voice in his head quieted, just a little.
She got called over a minute later to help the fire crew load leftover food into the back of the engine, waved over her shoulder as she walked, and yelled that she’d wear waterproof boots for the airboat ride. Moe sat there for a minute, finishing his lukewarm sweet tea, the cobbler stain on his sleeve still sticky to the touch, the crumpled raffle ticket for the bass rod tucked in his jeans pocket. He pulled out his phone, typed a quick text to his daughter saying he might have made a new friend, and watched a red-winged blackbird land on the edge of the picnic table, trilling the same high, sharp call he and Linda used to listen to from their front porch every spring evening.
