Clay Bennett was 58, retired TVA lineman, 32 years climbing utility poles through Tennessee thunderstorms and summer heat so thick you could stir it with a stick. His worst flaw was pride, the kind that made him refuse to ask for help even when his bad knee ached so bad he could barely climb the steps to his porch, the kind that kept him avoiding Mara Hale for 22 straight years. Back in 2001, she’d shown up on his doorstep with photo proof his wife was cheating with his hunting buddy, and he’d slammed the door in her face instead of saying thank you, too embarrassed to admit his marriage had been rotting from the inside out for three years. He’d skipped every town event she might attend after that, until the annual fire department chili cookoff, when his hound dog Mabel snuck out of his truck and ran straight for her, tail wagging so hard her whole body wiggled.
He was mid-sip of sweet tea, plastic cup sweating in his grip, when he spotted her kneeling to scratch Mabel behind the ears, and his first instinct was to duck behind the cotton candy stand. She stood before he could move, brushing dog hair off her faded 2016 Dolly Parton tour shirt, and waved. She walked over slow, boots kicking up loose gravel from the fairground parking lot, and stopped so close he could smell cinnamon gum and lavender shampoo over the thick, savory scent of simmering chili and pine from the woods at the edge of the lot. She held out a hand, and when he took it, her knuckles brushed the scar on his left forearm, the one he got from a live line surge in 2018, and he felt a jolt sharp enough to make him suck in a breath.