Manny Ruiz, 62, retired air traffic controller, leans against the hood of his fully restored 1967 Camaro, sweating through the cuffs of his faded navy flannel despite the 90-degree Tucson dusk. He’s got a half-warm Michelob Ultra in one hand, the other curled around the custom pearl shift knob he’s had in the car since his wife Lena bought it for him for their 15th anniversary. He came to the neighborhood 4th of July block party for the bratwurst and to show off the Camaro, but he’s been lingering on the edge of the crowd for an hour, because he heard Lena’s cousin Elara moved back to town last month. He hasn’t spoken to her in 20 years, not since he blamed her for talking Lena into that solo road trip to Santa Fe where she hit a patch of black ice and crashed. Holding grudges is his worst flaw, he knows it, but that anger has been a crutch for so long he doesn’t know how to set it down.
The smell of charcoal and grilled onions hangs thick in the air, kids scream as they chase each other with glow sticks, and a cheap portable speaker blasts 80s rock from the front yard of the house down the block. He’s just about to chug the last of his beer and head home when he sees her walking toward him, silver streaks weaving through her dark wavy hair, a faded linen button-down tied at the waist showing a sliver of sun-tanned skin, work boots caked in red desert dust. She’s a wildlife rehabber now, he heard, spends her days patching up injured desert tortoises and releasing them back into Saguaro National Park. He tenses up, ready to turn and walk away, but she calls his name before he can move, her voice lower and rougher than he remembers, like she’s spent years yelling over wind and desert storms.