Javi Mendez, 61, leaned his hip against a warped pine picnic table at the annual Oakwood Fire Department chili cookoff, swirling a paper bowl of three-alarm chili with a flimsy plastic spork. He’d only shown up because the fire chief had texted him three times, badgering him to enter his decoy carvings in the silent auction to raise money for new gear. His work boots were still caked with muck from the marsh he’d tramped through that morning, checking nesting spots for blue-winged teal, and the flannel shirt he wore was dotted with faint cedar shavings from the two decoys he’d sanded down the night before. He’d planned to stay 45 minutes max, drop off the carvings, eat one bowl of chili, and head home to watch the Brewers game.
That plan flew out the window when he spotted Lila Marlow crossing the fairground, a corn dog in one hand and a can of root beer in the other. He recognized her immediately, even though it had been 25 years since he’d seen her last, when she was 16 and crashing his lake house every other weekend with his ex-wife’s other younger cousins, running through the yard screaming, sneaking sips of his beer when he wasn’t looking. The thin, jagged scar wrapping around her left wrist, from the time she’d slipped off his dock and landed on a broken piece of rebar, was still visible when she pushed a strand of honey-blonde hair out of her face. She looked different now, sharp, lean, work jeans that fit snug over wide shoulders, a faded carpenter’s hoodie, calluses peeking out from the cuffs of her sleeves where she’d been helping her aunt rehab her knee for the past three weeks.