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

her family’s orchard for three generations. She recounted how her great-grandparents had come to the Hood River Valley from Germany and planted the first trees. She explained how they passed the orchard to her grandparents, who passed it to Al and Marina. Colorful drawings went along with her presentation as she explained the seasons of pruning, irrigation, and harvest. She detailed annual crop tonnages and the Holtzmans’ prize varieties of heirloom fruit, including Pippins, Gravensteins, and Braeburns. For the last picture, Alice had drawn herself in overalls driving the green tractor between the rows of apple trees. This was how she imagined herself as a grown-up, taking over for her parents as the fourth generation of Holtzman family farmers.

When she finished, her teacher, Miss Tooksbury, patted her pretty hands together and urged Alice’s classmates to do the same. Alice was rolling up her pictures when David Hanson yelled from the back of the room.

“You can’t be a farmer! Farmer’s wife, you mean!”

He collapsed across his desk with hilarity, and the room erupted with laughter. Alice stood frozen at the front of the class. Miss Tooksbury scolded David, saying that Alice could be anything she wanted.

“Yes, even an astronaut, David,” she said, frowning.

But as Miss Tooksbury glanced at her and away again with narrowed eyes, Alice realized that her teacher didn’t really believe that she could be an astronaut or a farmer. It was the first time she understood that adults sometimes lied. After school, she told her father about it as she helped him cut and sand tree stakes for the new grafts. Al listened, nodding, but didn’t say anything. She pressed him, even though she knew that her father spoke only when he had something to say.

“But she’s my teacher,” she said, her voice rising to a whine. “And she thinks David was right!”

Her father stopped sanding and looked down at her, sawdust motes floating in the air between them. “Is Miss Tooksbury here cutting tree stakes?”

Alice shook her head.

“Will she be here tomorrow when we start grafting new seedlings?”

Again, Alice shook her head.

“Well, I guess we know that Miss Tooksbury is not learning to be a farmer. But who knows? People change.”

And that was all he said about it. Alice hugged him harder than usual when she went to bed that night. Al Holtzman was a man of few words, but she knew he thought she would be a great farmer.

And yet, thirty-four years later, Alice was not staking trees or grafting stock. Al was dead, the orchard was gone, and Alice was still working at the county planning department. She wasn’t a farmer or even a farmer’s wife.

On Monday, as she drove to work, she considered what had happened between fourth grade and the age of forty-four. Her situation was not unusual. People let go of their childhood dreams and repackaged their lives into practical, predictable boxes, right? The idea depressed her and made her feel even worse about Jake.

It had been late afternoon when she returned from Little Bit and unloaded the hay bales from the truck. Jake was out in the apiary when she got back, so she waved and called out what she was doing. He watched her use the tractor to position the bales in a windbreak, and the activity eased the strangeness of her departure since they couldn’t talk. When Alice finished and walked over to the apiary, he beamed and gestured around with wordless happiness. Her heart sank. She couldn’t tell him then. Anyway, it was nearly dinnertime. One more night wouldn’t hurt, she thought.

After the kid disappeared into the guest room, she drafted a concise explanation of why he needed to go home. She would just be matter-of-fact about the physical part of the job. She rehearsed it, so that he could only agree and call his mother. The whole thing would be over after breakfast and he’d be gone when she got home from work. She was cheered at the thought of how quiet her house would be. She slept well, and when she awoke that morning, she knew it was the right thing to do. She just needed to be alone.

Alice found Jake waiting in the kitchen with a pot of very strong coffee. She choked on her first sip, but Jake didn’t notice because he was talking about the bees. He’d been up until 2:00 a.m. reading her Backyard Beekeeping book and had all kinds of questions about drones, their gathering areas, whether the drone population could be used to measure the health of the hive. Varroa mites and the controversy over treating or not treating. Against her will, Alice was drawn into the conversation because they were very interesting questions. Then she was running late and realized she would have to talk to him about leaving after work. She swore under her breath as she sped toward town.

She parked in the county lot and stood on the sidewalk, looking down the hill toward the water. It was windy already. Kiteboarders and windsurfers formed bright clusters on the white-capped river, most likely locals stealing a bit of water time before work. The waterfront would be packed with tourists by June. She could see the long strip of green grass where people congregated—wind chasers and spectators.

She had been looking at that view for her entire life and never tired of it—the emerald swath of grass, the sandbar spilling into the river, and the craggy cliffs of the gorge rising up out of the water. Memories of summers past burbled to the surface of her mind. Not now, she said, and put them firmly away.

“Morning, Alice!”

The voice at her shoulder made her jump. It was Rich Carlson, the county’s human resources and finance manager. As usual, Rich was in a suit when everyone else adhered to the dress code Alice described as “farm-casual.” In twelve years Alice had never seen Rich without a tie. Not even at the summer picnic. He stood on the sidewalk batting a rolled-up newspaper