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

and reminded her that statistically speaking, she was more likely to die in an automobile accident than a plane crash. So she went. She remembered how beautiful that evening flight was. It was cloudy when they took off, the west wind clobbering the small plane as it strained upward. Once in the air, they flew smoothly. Alice looked out over the clouds to see the old volcanoes poking up above the white sea. They were lined up in the pink alpenglow—Mount Hood and Mount Jefferson to the south and Mount Adams, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Rainier to the north. She sat in the back seat of the small plane and looked at her husband’s profile. When Vince let him take the controls, Alice felt her worry leave her. She looked down at the river of clouds that snaked above the gorge in a mirror image of the river. She would follow Bud Ryan anywhere.

A car door slammed, and she saw Ron walking toward her in his sheriff’s uniform. She stood as he approached. He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning either. She didn’t know what to do. Shake hands? Ron seemed as uncomfortable as she felt as they faced each other.

“Hi, Alice,” he said.

“Hello, Ron. Thanks for meeting me,” she said.

There was an awkward pause. She gestured at his uniform.

“You on duty?”

He shook his head. “Just off. Didn’t have time to go home and change.”

She nodded and looked at him more closely. Did he look nervous?

“I’ll just go grab a—” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “You want anything?”

She shook her head. Ron walked to the soda machine and returned with a Coke. He sat down across from her, rolling the sweating can between his hands.

“Long time,” he said.

She nodded.

“Yes, it has been,” she said. More than a year, she thought, though they both knew that.

She looked into his face, so familiar to her. Ron was six years older than Alice, so he would be fifty that year. His blond hair was grayer now. The crow’s-feet had deepened around his eyes. But otherwise he was the same old Ron. There was a time when she had felt a brotherly love from this man. It didn’t matter if Ron still hated her and blamed her for Bud’s death. She just needed to deliver this message and they could go back to the silence of the past year. But for some reason she kept talking about other things.

“I saw Ronnie,” she said. “I heard he joined the department.”

“Yeah. Last fall,” Ron said, and gave a short laugh, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “You know Ronnie. He’s still getting his feet under him.”

Alice nodded. “He’ll be fine,” she said. “He’s a good boy.”

Ron looked away toward the airport and then back to Alice.

“He told me you have a couple of kids working for you,” Ron said.

He raised his eyebrows, being diplomatic. Surely Ronnie had told him about Harry’s junky trailer up in BZ Corner and Jake’s wheelchair and kooky hair.

“They’re pretty handy,” she said.

Ron nodded. “It’s good you have some help around the place.”

His voice was stilted.

“You know you can always call us,” he said. He looked at her and glanced toward the airport again. “Me and my boys, I mean.”

Alice didn’t know what to say to that.

Ron cleared his throat and looked down at the table. The silence stretched interminably as Alice waited for Ron to speak. When he finally met her gaze, his face was tight with grief.

“Look, Alice. I said some terrible things to you after—” He stopped and took a breath. “After Bud died. Probably unforgivable things. I was— It just hurt so much to lose him.”

Ron stared down at his clenched hands, and she could see the tears gathering in his eyes. His words came out in a rush.

“I think about him every day, and I think about those things I said to you. I’ve wanted to call you to tell you how sorry I am. I didn’t think you would ever speak to me again. I just— I’m so sorry. I should never—”

His voice broke.

Alice saw again how she had failed to appreciate Buddy’s family’s grief. Locked away in her own pain, she had not considered theirs. They had each other, after all, she’d thought, thinking that somehow made it easier for them. How could she have been so selfish? She reached out and touched his sleeve.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Ron. Water under the bridge. Buddy would want us to be friends.”

The big man looked up, nodding. He wiped his eyes. “He would, Alice. You’re right.”

He tried to laugh. “You can’t blame me! You know the Ryan family motto: ‘Shoot first and ask questions later.’”

Alice smiled.

“Not Buddy, though,” Ron said. “He took after Grammy June. Always happy, that guy.”

Alice nodded. She felt emotion rise in her. Her heart beat hard in her chest, and she let herself think of his face. Bud’s great teasing grin. Her eyes grew wet, but it was okay. She could hold her love and her grief in the same moment.

Ron watched her, crossing and uncrossing his arms as she composed herself.

“Your mom always said the Ryan mean streak skipped your generation,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Ron laughed, but then his face grew serious. “So, what’s this thing about Evie?”

Alice took a deep breath and told him, as concisely as she could, about the SupraGro contract with the county, Bill’s retirement, how Rich Carlson had threatened her, and how she’d quit.

Ron’s face grew stormy. “Those two,” he spat. “No checks and balances in this town. Always double-dipping.”

Alice nodded.

“And Evie? What about Evie?”

Alice chose her words carefully.

“Someone passed this along to me. I didn’t hear it myself,” Alice said.

She told him how a person had overheard Rich saying that some of Evangelina’s employees at the taqueria didn’t have their work permits. He said they could shut her down for that and press charges for unpaid payroll taxes.

Alice knew that Evangelina had worked for years to make the restaurant