“Crap,” Marsden grunted. “The zipper’s stuck.”
“What do you mean, it’s stuck?” her dad snapped.
Marsden still had a grip on the veil as her dad thrashed. “If you hold still,” Marsden said through gritted teeth, “maybe I can pinch it through the mesh.”
“Pinch it? You can’t pinch it!” Her dad tugged furiously at the zipper. The bee was agitated, pinging off the veil, finally settling on his cheek. “I need to get this thing off!”
Cassie watched in horror as the bee crept toward her father’s eye. “Daddy, hold still! He’ll get it.” She didn’t see how Marsden was going to pluck the bee from her father’s face through the veil, especially the way her dad was flailing around.
Marsden managed to get hold of him again, but her father pushed him off with surprising strength, stumbling toward the woods, swatting at his head.
“Don’t run!” Cassie shouted, rushing after him. They would have to tackle her father to the ground at this rate. She could just picture it—taking down an eighty-five-year-old whose heart rate had probably shot through the roof. Never mind a bee sting, he’d be lucky if he came through this without breaking a hip or suffering a heart attack.
He made it a couple of yards before tripping. A soft spot on the ground, not even a hole, just a slight depression where the earth took a little dip. He went down with a howl of pain.
Marsden reached him in an instant, whipping out a pocketknife and expertly slicing open the veil. He yanked it off as her father sat dazed, breathing hard, his injured ankle splayed awkwardly in front of him. “Too late,” he mumbled.
The bee had gotten him in the soft tissue of his lower lid, and the eye had already begun to swell. Cassie shook out the veil, jumping back when the bee fell out.
“It’s dead,” Marsden said. “They only have one sting.”
She kneeled in front of her father to assess his face. “This one’s a doozy.” The eye was puffing up fast, and the rest of his skin had a pasty color she didn’t like.
“Are you dizzy?” she asked. “How do you feel?”
Her father glared at her. “How do you think I feel? I got stung on my eye, and my goddamn ankle hurts.”
Marsden helped him gently to his feet. “Let’s get some ice on the eye and that ankle too.” They made their way to the truck, her dad grudgingly allowing Marsden to support him.
“What about the bees?” Her father cast a look at the box, which had toppled onto its side.
“Can you right it?” Marsden asked her.
“Me?” Cassie’s mouth went dry.
“It’s not hard,” Marsden said. “Just take it by the edges and set it upright.”
“Easy for you to say,” she muttered. But there was no one else to do it, and she couldn’t leave the bees sideways like that. Her heart skittered as she lifted the box, careful to keep her fingers away from the screen. The bees were riled up, banging around unhappily. She gently set the box upright and stepped back.
“They’ll be fine,” Marsden assured her dad. “It’s cool today.”
Once inside, they got her father settled in his wingback chair with his foot propped on the ottoman. Frozen peas on his eye and a package of assorted vegetables around the ankle.
“That’s going to need an X-ray,” Cassie said.
He glowered at her around the peas. “It’s not broken. Look.” He tried flexing his foot but winced in pain.
“We’re going for an X-ray. No argument.”
Her dad leaned back and closed his good eye. He looked utterly defeated.
She kissed the top of his head, which was matted with sweat. “Why don’t you rest now, we can go later.” She tucked the vegetables more tightly around his ankle. Her dad had alwaysbeen a big believer in frozen vegetables. When she sprained her ankle playing dodgeball in sixth grade, he’d packed it with a pound of frozen Birds Eye, and they played Scrabble to take her mind off the pain. There was something comforting about frozen vegetables, a vestige of childhood when her dad could still make everything right. To this day, she kept a package of peas in the freezer.
Her dad opened his good eye and fixed it on Marsden. “Can you do it, move those bees?”
Marsden, who’d been standing near the door, stepped forward. “Of course. Don’t worry about a thing, I’ll take care of it right now.”
Her dad struggled up and the peas slid off his face. “I’m going to be laid up for a while with this, this—” He looked down at his ankle but couldn’t come up with the word. Marsden waited quietly. “This trouble,” her dad said finally. “Might need some help till I’m back on my feet.”
