Roy Pritchard, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, leans against a chipped red picnic table at the local fire department’s annual summer barbecue, swirling bourbon-spiked lemonade in a plastic cup. He only showed up because his 16-year-old niece begged him to bring the jar of pickled beets he still makes from his late wife’s recipe, and he’d rather chew tinfoil than admit he likes the smell of charcoal and bratwurst curling through the upstate New York air. His worst flaw, as his sister never tires of pointing out, is that he’s spent the three years since his wife passed hiding from any situation that might require him to talk to someone new, holed up in his backyard workshop building Adirondack chairs he never sells, stacking them by the garage like weathered monuments to stagnation.
He’s about to sneak out early when he spots Mara Carter across the lawn, leaning against the dessert table, wiping a smudge of brownie chocolate off her thumb with the edge of her faded sunflower-patterned sundress. Mara is 58, the new town librarian, and the ex-wife of his old high school football rival, now the county sheriff running for re-election. Roy hasn’t spoken to her since 1989, when their kids were in the same fourth grade class, and he’d always written her off as off-limits, even back when they were teens, when he’d catch her staring at him from the bleachers during away games.