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

avoided the particulars of the job description on her side and any mention of his father’s behavior on his.

Now Alice lay in bed looking up at the ceiling, her eyes grainy from lack of sleep. She had no idea what his physical needs were. She’d been the one to invite him, but did she have to take care of him now?

“The boy isn’t a puppy, Alice,” her mother’s voice snapped in her mind. “Make him breakfast and save the hard questions for later.”

Sensible even in the afterlife—that was Marina Holtzman. Alice got out of bed and pulled on her clothes. She heard a door open and the sound of running water from the guest room. That was something. Her anxiety eased a notch, and she went into the kitchen.

As she made coffee, Alice reflected wryly that the accessibility of the house had proven itself, anyway. She’d renovated the one-level rancher thinking that her parents would move in someday: the ramp, widened doorways, and a fully accessible guest room and attached bathroom. But no one had maneuvered through its hallways until last night. Jake wheeled himself in the front door and down the hall. He’d spun the chair and smiled.

“Nice digs, Alice,” he said.

Despite the smile, he looked tired. Alice was exhausted too and happy to turn in early when they finished dinner and he said he didn’t need anything.

Alice looked out over the field, where the sun lit upon the white beehives. She could see it was windy already as she watched the cottonwoods and Doug firs tossing their branches. Not ideal weather for checking the new nucs as she had planned.

“Coffee first, dearie. Always coffee first,” her father’s voice said.

She sat at the table and pulled up the weather forecast on her laptop. It would be windy early, tapering off in late morning. She could do her hive check later. For now she could show Jake around the farm and introduce him to the bees. She’d find a way to broach the subject of the actual work involved and ease him into an understanding that he couldn’t possibly do what she needed him to—lift bulky brood boxes and hundred-pound honey supers and dig holes for fencing and the like. There was no way he could do any of that from a sitting position as far as she could see. But she could let him stay for a couple of days, until his father cooled down. That made sense, and surely, he would understand.

She heard the sound of wheels on the linoleum behind her and turned, smiling with the false cheer of someone who was accustomed to being alone in the morning and liked it that way but who was brought up to make an effort to be polite.

“Good morning,” she said, and then stopped cold at the sight of his long, wet hair draped behind one shoulder like a punk mermaid.

He looked embarrassed and pulled the long shank with one hand. “Pretty rad, huh?” he said, trying to smile and shrugged. “I really needed a shower.”

He looked so young and vulnerable with his wild hairdo undone, and Alice felt herself soften.

“Not too formal around here,” she said, waving a hand at her rumpled shirt and Carhartt overalls. “This is standard coffee-hour attire.”

His face brightened, and he looked over her shoulder to the kitchen. “There’s coffee?”

Alice moved to stand, but Jake rolled up to the counter and poured himself a cup. He maneuvered over to the table and sat next to her and looked out the window.

“Wow! I’ve never been this far out in the orchards. Your place is amazing. Is that all yours out there?”

Alice loved the beauty of the sunlit meadow and adjacent forest land, but it surprised her that a teenage boy would notice. She nodded and gestured south. “Out to the fence line is all my place. And on this side, past the barn. Then north to the road. I’ll show you after breakfast. You hungry?”

He nodded and moved to follow as Alice rose and went to the kitchen.

“Let me help,” he said. “I make a mean piece of toast.”

Alice turned and smiled the polite smile of the reluctant host. “I’ll do breakfast this morning and then we’ll see—” She stopped.

Hearing her hesitate, Jake’s smile dimmed. Surely, he understood that this would never work.

He cast his eyes down and then back up at her as if steeling himself. “Listen, Alice. You did me a solid last night. I won’t be a burden around here. I’ll carry my own weight. I’ll—”

She waved a hand at him, feigning lightness. She thought of what her mother would say in a situation like this, though Marina Holtzman would never do something so rash as insert herself in another family’s conflict. And then there was the wheelchair. She had no idea what kind of needs the boy had.

“Don’t worry about it, Jake. We’ll figure something out.”

She said the words with an ease and confidence that she didn’t feel, and it did the trick. The kid smiled and rolled back to the table. He rifled through a copy of yesterday’s Hood River News while Alice made breakfast.

Over scrambled eggs and toast, she explained the apiary, which was currently at twenty-four hives and which she hoped to grow to fifty or more over the course of the summer. She explained the bee year, which started in spring and ran into fall. Her hives were all Langstroth hives, which were designed by Lorenzo Langstroth in the mid-1800s and had revolutionized beekeeping in America. Because they had removable frames, they were the easiest for beginning beekeepers, Alice said.

Jake said she didn’t seem like such a beginner with twenty-four hives, but she just shrugged. It still felt that way to her. When they went out to the barn after breakfast, Alice walked more slowly than usual and tried to act like she wasn’t. Unlike the house, the yard had not been modified for a wheelchair, and it seemed suddenly bumpy and rough to her as she