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

few things Jacob enjoys these days . . .” She trailed off.

Alice didn’t know what to say. The sorrow in the woman’s voice spoke volumes about her son’s young, arrested life.

“Well,” Alice said, “I’d like to pay for any repairs needed on the chair.”

Tansy smiled, pulled a Kleenex out of her cuff, and dabbed her eyes. “The chair seems fine, but thank you for offering.”

Just in case, they should exchange numbers, Alice said. She walked back to the truck to get a pen. She scribbled her email address and phone number on her receipt from Ace and realized she was stalling, hoping to see the kid. The screen door creaked open, and there he was, mohawk and all. She noted the dark circles under his eyes and his pale face. His smile bloomed tentatively.

“Hey, Alice!” he called. He rolled down the wheelchair ramp and braked at her feet. Alice noted his fluid, even graceful, maneuvering of the chair. In the clear light of day, he looked even younger. She regretted having left so abruptly two nights earlier, never mind what his stupid father had said.

He spotted the backpack at his mother’s feet.

“Thanks. I was missing that,” he said.

“No problem,” she said, and smiled back.

“How are the ladies doing?” he asked. “Everyone okay after their big adventure?”

Alice chuckled. “Yes, they’re settling in okay.”

“Right. Like you said, tough little broads. Everyone hard at work raising the babies?”

Alice was pleased that he had remembered her words.

“You bet,” she said.

Tansy looked from Alice to Jake and back again.

“Bees, Mom! I told you. She’s a beekeeper,” Jake said.

He waved his hands in the air, his eyes wide. “She has thousands of bees at her house. Thousands!”

“Well, tens of thousands, actually,” Alice said. “Each of those boxes in my truck had about ten thousand bees in it.”

“Holy crap! That’s amazing!”

“Jacob. Language, please.”

“Sorry, Mom,” he said. “But seriously.”

He cocked his head and lowered his voice. “You should have seen them flying around after Alice hit the fence. The boxes fell all over the place. She just walked right in there like it was nothing. Picked them up and put them back in the truck.”

Tansy shuddered. “Do they sting you?”

Alice shrugged. That was everyone’s first question. “Sometimes. But like I told Jake, they only sting when they feel threatened.”

Though Alice hated small talk, she loved bee talk. She thought she might tell Tansy about the guard bees, if she was really interested. But Jake was already telling her. He glanced at Alice.

“Yeah, I looked it up yesterday. Pretty cool. It’s like Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. ‘You shall not pass!’ I was reading about yellow jacket robbing too. What do you do? Bait traps or let them fight it out?”

Alice started to respond but then heard the low growl of a diesel engine in the driveway behind her. She turned and saw Jake’s father glaring out the window of a silver Ford F-250. The engine whined as he reversed and parked on the street. He walked toward them, his face creased in anger, every step weighted with the tragedy of this inconvenience.

“. . . Park in his own damn driveway!” he was muttering as he approached. The smile had left Jake’s face, and Tansy looked nervous. Jake’s father scowled at them. Something told Alice this happened all the time.

“What are you doing here? Besides blocking my damn driveway?”

He was wearing Wranglers ironed to a crease and a plaid shirt with a name tag that read, “Hello! I’m Edward!” in cheerful female handwriting, clearly from some work event. The contrast with his cranky face made Alice smile involuntarily.

“You think that’s funny, huh?”

“Edward, dear,” Tansy said. “Alice brought Jacob’s backpack—”

“I think I told you to get off my driveway,” he said, ignoring his wife. “And I meant stay off. Is that so hard to understand, lady?”

His voice rose to a whine, and he looked like a petulant child.

Alice didn’t say anything. She’d grown up with such a kind father, his colorful language aside. But she’d met this kind of man before. Every woman in America had by the time she was twenty-five. She’d worked with men to whom bullying was a standard management style. Testosterone poisoning, she and her friend Nancy joked. And yet it was women who were called hysterical. They were like little children, these angry men, she thought. Always throwing their tantrums.

Something clicked in Alice’s mind then. Little boys. Edward Stevenson. Eddie.

“Eddie Stevenson,” she said aloud. “Eddie Stevenson from Hatch Street.”

Edward’s face went slack in surprise.

“I’m Alice Holtzman,” she said, looking closely at him. Yes, he was in his late thirties, which would make him about seven years younger than she was.

“I was your babysitter’s neighbor. Jeannine Sharp. Remember?”

She snapped her fingers and laughed. “I helped her give you a bath when you were three years old.”

The memory flickered through her mind. Funny Jeannine, always so patient with little kids. Alice sat on the bathroom floor watching the boy splash in the tub while Jeannine changed his little sister’s diaper.

Ed shifted uncomfortably and grew pale. Jake looked skeptical, as if he couldn’t believe his father had ever been a small, naked child. Alice saw something in Ed’s face like shame. And fear.

What was it? The ugly story came back to her like a sour smell. She was a junior when she heard about it at a football game. The little boys had caught a feral cat on the playground after school. Tortured it to death. Alice looked at him and saw the little boy in this man’s face. Imagined the dirty streaks on his nose, sunburned neck, crew cut, and torn shorts. He would have been nine or so then. They’d sent him to live with relatives in Spokane.

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “You got expelled from May Street Elementary. You and Craig Stone.”

Such cruelty from children was rare in their little town, something you didn’t forget. The poor helpless creature, not deserving of such an end. And Jake, with a father like that.

Alice felt her throat catch, and her breath grew