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

different options. As for the county, well, Alice worked in the county planning department. She knew how backward things could be. It could take years to change a simple mailbox ordinance. Alice had later wished she’d argued with him about it, wished she’d told him how much she wanted it. But she didn’t want to make him feel worse. Her eyes prickled with tears remembering. She wiped them away with the back of her wrist.

Al and Marina gave Alice some money from the sale of the orchard, which she used to buy her place in the quiet dell—a single-story rancher on a couple of acres. She thought they might eventually move in with her. But they had wanted to be independent, and they’d moved into a town house. They died within six months of each other—Al first. Alice missed them.

She talked to Dr. Zimmerman about them too. She mentioned she seemed to hear their voices in her head and sometimes she talked back to them, though that might sound nuts. Dr. Zimmerman looked at Alice over the tops of her glasses. Alice blushed. She supposed it wasn’t polite to say “nuts.”

But Dr. Zimmerman simply nodded. “It must be a comfort to you,” she said.

But they both knew the reason Alice went to see the nice lady doctor was not because she missed her folks.

Alice slowed for a large fruit packing truck barreling through the intersection near the road to Kingsley Reservoir. She glanced south to find Mount Hood on the horizon, kissed with sunset. She turned up the stereo, which was now playing one of her favorite Springsteen songs, “Thunder Road.”

Alice had started seeing Dr. Zimmerman after she’d had what felt like a heart attack in the middle of the produce section in Little Bit Grocery and Ranch Supply three months earlier. She’d been standing next to Carlos, the friendly, handsome clerk, the one who always called her “Madame” or “Miss Alice” and always had a story to share about his kids or the news. For the first time she had felt that invisible band ratcheting down across her chest, and she couldn’t catch her breath. She slid to the floor, pulling down a pile of kale with her. Carlos eased her into a sitting position against a rack of absurd, uncut Brussels stalks. She could see his lips moving but couldn’t hear any sound. She was close enough to see that he had a tiny bit of shaving cream on the smooth brown skin behind his ear. She felt she needed to tell him and wanted to laugh at that urge. The paramedics came, and then it seemed like half of Hood River County was standing around looking down at Alice Holtzman sitting on the floor, her chest heaving and red in the face. Her face flamed now, remembering.

She knew almost everyone at the small ER too. Jim Verk, who she’d known since second grade, was on duty that night and told her she’d had a panic attack. She went to see Dr. Zimmerman at his recommendation. Nobody in the history of the Holtzman family had ever been to a therapist, but the experience at Little Bit had embarrassed Alice so much that she was willing to try anything to avoid a repeat episode.

Alice stared at the road and realized she was gripping the steering wheel as she remembered. She willed herself to relax. The sunset was winning their race when she reached the Oak Grove Schoolhouse. She sped up the hill, which was shadowed by tall Douglas firs that marked the boundary of county forest land. Through the window, she felt the cool air at the top of the rise and glanced at the bees again in the rearview mirror. The new nucs were the root of her anxiety, she realized. Every step of her carefully planned day was bent toward successful hive installment. These bees depended on her. But at this hour, the temperature would be even colder down in her shady ravine, and she didn’t want to stress the girls with exposure to the cold, dark air and the artificial light of the shop. They would have to wait until tomorrow, she told herself. They had honey in their combs to eat and would be fine for one night in their nuc boxes. Better for her to make the transfers when she was fresh to avoid any silly mistakes.

“Be sensible now and pull yourself together,” her mother’s voice said.

Alice sighed and surrendered the idea of that chore.

“Tomorrow morning before work, then,” she said aloud.

Alice relaxed back into the seat and palmed the wheel as she followed the familiar curves of Reed Road. She let her mind drift, trusting her thoughts to behave, expecting her customary self-discipline to keep any worrisome memories rounded up like obedient sheep by a collie. But then she recalled her last session with Dr. Zimmerman. The therapist had been leading Alice toward the forbidden topic for some time, but they hadn’t ever quite arrived. Alice kept certain thoughts behind a firmly closed door in her mind and had resisted Dr. Zimmerman’s gentle prodding. Now, without warning, the door opened a crack. Later she would blame fatigue for her careless bargaining with herself. I’ll just think of his face, she thought. Just that. Then the door burst open and the memories flooded her.

Bud laughing as he stood behind the counter at the John Deere store. A photo of Bud in his parks department uniform on the front page of the Hood River News. Bud looking so serious that she thought he was breaking up with her, but he asked her to marry him instead. That day at the courthouse, the day he moved in, the day they brought the baby chicks home from Little Bit and sat on the floor watching them peep and hop around under the heat lamp. Buddy waltzing his laughing mother around the living room after Sunday dinner to Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon.” Buddy loading the little