The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin (free ereaders txt) 📗

or the noise from backyard parties. Something always pissed Ed off. He warmed to the idea that Cheney might scare people.

“I don’t want to see it or hear it or smell it,” Ed said, jabbing his cigarette and glaring down at the dog. “Take care of the animal or it goes.”

“The animal”—of course that was how his father would put it. He wouldn’t see what a friend the dog was or how hard Cheney tried. When he failed, Cheney was so sorry—like when he stole a block of cheese off the counter. Or when he broke the screen door during his wild greetings. He wanted to be good, you could tell. After he’d clobbered Jake’s mom a couple of times, he understood he needed to be calm around her. He would sit at her feet, trembling, as she scratched his ears and the white star on his chest.

His father was sure he wouldn’t be able to take care of the dog and was waiting for Jake to make a mistake. But Jake did it all: walked him, fed him, brushed him. He filled his water bowl and kept him tied up when they were outside in the yard together. Jake got him neutered, and poor Cheney banged around the house in that great plastic cone. His mom helped pay for the surgery and dog license, but they didn’t tell Ed that. Anyway, he promised to pay her back.

What had Noah’s mom said that day?

“Good luck, Jacob.”

Dean had said the same thing. “Good luck, kid.”

Dean was his big, buff physical therapist at Providence Rehab.

“You’re gonna do great.”

Wait. That was later. That was after. Cheney came before the accident.

His memories were all jumbled together. Where was he? The ditch.

He opened his eyes again and saw the darkening sky above him. He could make out the Oak Grove Schoolhouse rising against the east hills. He’d been out on Reed Road listening to Spring Heeled Jack. So how had he fallen out of his chair next to the irrigation ditch?

And Cheney, where was Cheney, his fireplug of a dog, his constant companion?

The day of Pomeroy’s party, Jake had shut Cheney in his room. He’d only be gone for an hour. Then the dog could hang out in the yard with him while he raked. Cheney looked mournful as he watched the boy lace up his Doc Martens. Jake tossed him a peanut butter–filled KONG from the freezer. The last he saw of his dog was Cheney bounding around like a giant brindled bunny with the red KONG in his jaws.

Jake put a hand to his face. He tried to sit up and everything whirled. He lay back on the cold ground and remembered the day he came home from rehab. His big dog’s absence was the first thing he noticed. He pushed his way into the house and saw the hook by the door empty of the leash. He listened in vain for the staccato click of nails on linoleum. There was no happy bark from his room. That one tiny spark that held the crushing depression at bay went out.

He would never know exactly what happened to Cheney. His father glanced up from the TV. Ed, who had come to visit Jake in the hospital only once and had stared down at his son, his face clenched like a fist, now wore the same look. He turned back to the TV and sipped his beer.

“Like I said. Take care of the animal or it goes.”

“I’m so sorry, honey,” his mom whispered behind him. “I didn’t know.”

Jake wheeled himself to his bedroom. The doorway had been widened to accommodate the chair. His old twin bed with the Star Wars sheets was gone, and there was an accessible bed in its place. There was an overbed lifting pole attached to the wall. His posters and games were still there, and his desk and computer. All clean and tidy, too tidy. He closed the door behind him on the sound of his mother’s low voice and Ed’s rising to drown hers out.

He was exhausted but couldn’t sleep. He lay awake watching the moon move across the sky until all was dark again. He wanted to be anywhere else but there. Yet where could he go? Finally, he slept. He dreamed of a golden river. It flooded its banks, swept him out of his wheelchair, and away he swam, light and happy. He awoke in the morning to the crushing weight of his future.

After that Jake slipped into a dark place. Winter 2013 set a record for rain—124 inches in three months. He thought he might go crazy. He woke up in the dark listening to his parents leave for work and watched the darkness fall by 3:00 p.m.

Each day he faced the empty hours. Another day of waiting. Another day of PT exercises that seemed to have plateaued. Instagram posts from friends who had moved on to other things. Email messages he couldn’t bring himself to open. He slept as late as he could to kill the time. He was eighteen years old and killing time. His life was like jail. He would have cried, but he had already done that for months and it hadn’t helped.

He thought briefly about killing himself then. He sat in front of Ed’s rifle case one afternoon, considering how he would manage it. One thing that stopped him was the thought of his mother and what would happen to her if he botched it and ended up even worse off than he was then. And anyway, he was still himself, wasn’t he?

He listened to music—the Clash, the Ramones, the Dead Kennedys, and all the U.S. ska bands, the louder the better. But he couldn’t touch his trumpet. That music was too close to his heart. Just the thought of playing made him feel absolutely shredded. The trumpet case sat in the corner of his too-tidy room until one day he couldn’t stand it anymore and shoved it in the back