“Your daughter is welcome to get out of the car,” Cassie said. “It’s cooler on the porch.” The windows were open, but it didn’t seem right to make the girl sit in the car on a warm day.
“Want to get out, Lilah?” Marsden said.
She shrugged. “I’m okay.”
“Why don’t you come down and give us a hand?” His voice was mild, but it wasn’t really a question. The girl sighed extravagantly, and Cassie thought she might be about to argue, but she disengaged from the passenger seat. “Can Charlie get out?”
“No,” Marsden said. “Let him stay in the car.”
“It’s okay if you want to let him out,” Cassie said. “There’s plenty of room for him to run around.”
Marsden shot her an irritated look. “Thank you, but he’s fine. The windows are open.”
Lilah gave her father a sidelong glance. “She said he can get out.” The girl wasn’t letting it go, and Cassie realized she’d unwittingly stirred something up, or maybe it was already stirred and she’d just stepped in it.
“Oh, all right,” Marsden said. “You can let him out. But leave the phone.”
The girl opened the back door and the dog shot out like he’d been imprisoned for a decade. He did a couple of quickcircles, then came to sniff at Cassie and her father. After he was satisfied, he gave a wag and ambled off toward the field.
“Keep an eye on him,” Marsden told the girl.
They all trooped through the field down to the hives, following the path her father had worn over the years. Even in spring, when the grass grew tall, it never entirely disappeared. Always the whisper of a track from the house to the hives. And past the hives, an old stone wall that bordered the woods. The trees were still bare but had started to soften with a hint of green. Only a matter of days until the woods were lush with leaves.
Cassie kept a wary eye out as they approached the hives. She’d had a vehement dislike of bees ever since fourth grade when her best friend, Marianne McKenzie, nearly died of a bee sting. Within minutes of getting stung on the softball field, Marianne had gone clammy and was wheezing for breath, her tongue swollen to twice its normal size. There were no EpiPens in those days, so the gym teacher bundled her into his car and rushed her to the hospital. Marianne recovered, but forty years later, the sight of a bee still made Cassie sweat.
“Have you opened them up yet this year?” Marsden asked.
“He tried yesterday,” Cassie said, “but ran into trouble.”
“Didn’t have any trouble,” her father said irritably. “The wind came up, that’s all. Will you let me talk to the man?”
“Sorry.” The rebuke made her feel foolish, but she hated to see her dad flounder, especially in front of a stranger. She had a hard time knowing when to step in and when to shut up. One minute he seemed lost and the next he was almost his old overbearing self. She tried to see it his way. She’d come traipsing in yesterday, and now here was a guy telling him what to do with his bees. She needed to give him some time to get used to it.
The hives were set on top of platforms her dad had built to keep them off the ground, which made them about chest height. This time, her dad managed to get the smoker started and aftera few good puffs, wriggled the outer lid free on the first hive, releasing a few more bees. He’d put on his veil up at the house but wasn’t wearing gloves or any other protective gear. But Cassie wasn’t going to mention that now. The beekeeper didn’t have on any gear at all, not even a veil, although he’d brought one with him.
With the lid successfully removed, her dad went to lift off the top box but couldn’t get a grip on it.
“Can I give you a hand?” Marsden said.
“I’ve got it.” Cassie’s dad huffed, but the box wasn’t budging.
“Here.” Marsden handed him a flat metal bar with a hooked end. “Try this.”
Her dad inserted the tool between the top box and the one beneath. He wiggled it a little but still couldn’t manage to work the box free. “Got a hundred-fifty pounds of honey out of these hives last year,” he said, stopping to catch his breath.
“Oh yeah? That’s not bad.” Marsden had produced another hive tool and without waiting to be asked, neatly popped the top box, lifted it off and set it on the ground. “What’d you do with it all? Sell any of it?”
“Ate some,” he said, “gave away the rest. I might still have a couple of jars left.”
Cassie had been through the cupboards and hadn’t seen any honey, but she didn’t mention it.
“When I can get her to help, Lilah’s pretty good with extracting,” Marsden said, smiling at the girl, who’d wandered over with Charlie. “Not so good with the cleanup though.”
“What do you mean?” she protested. “I always help clean up.”
He gave her a good-natured look. “That’s debatable.”
He was probably divorced, his weekend to have her. Cassie had never thought much about the logistics of divorced families, but now she noticed this kind of thing. Andrew wasn’t a child anymore, but she knew he was hurting, especially with Philgetting remarried. A woman with young kids, a do-over family. Andrew had to wonder where that left him.
