She nodded like she knew what he was talking about. Sometimes he slipped into bee speak without realizing it. But her dad seemed to have an idea because he was already making his way down the steps to the truck. Glenn opened the passenger door and steadied him unobtrusively as he climbed in.
But where was her father’s car? It wasn’t in its customary spot on the driveway. She’d returned the rental after the first week and was using her dad’s old Lexus to get around. Thankfully, he didn’t drive much these days. She’d been doing the grocery shopping, and Andrew had taken it once or twice to run errands. She glanced up at the house to see if she could catch a glimpse of him in Shelly’s room, but the shade was drawn. WherewasAndrew? She texted him but got no response.
Glenn had her dad out of the truck by the time she walked down the driveway and across the field, the grass tickling her ankles. Her dad watched intently as Glenn checked the sticky mat for mites.
“You still have a problem.” Glenn tipped the mat so she could see. “See those red dots?”
She squinted over his shoulder. Along with bits of dirt and other debris, she saw a smattering of red specks along the white board.
“Those are just the ones that fell off,” he said. “If there are that many on the board, there’s a lot in the hive.”
“Same thing over here.” Her dad was inspecting the sticky board on the other original hive. “What was that thing you said we should do?” He looked at Glenn, uncertain about what had been proposed.
“Drone comb traps.” Glenn produced two green plastic frames from his truck. “Varroa mites prefer drone brood, so if we take out a couple of frames and substitute these, the queen will lay drone.”
The plastic frames looked flimsy, not like the sturdy wooden frames already in the hive. “Then what?” said Cassie dubiously.
“The mites crawl inside once the eggs are laid. Then we wait four weeks until the cells are capped, take out the frames and put them in the freezer for a couple of days. It kills the drone brood but gets rid of the mites.”
“You have to kill the brood?” Killing bees to get rid of mites seemed extreme.
“I know. It’s a little gruesome but effective. The colony doesn’t need all that drone anyway. And it might help keep down the mite population.”
“Isn’t there anything else you can do?”
“If you want to use chemicals,” he said disapprovingly, “which I don’t. Once you go down that road, you have to keeptreating. This is treatment free—you’re not introducing toxins into your hives.”
Her dad had managed to lift the top off one of the boxes, and a few bees were drifting around. Glenn lit the smoker, puffing it to get it going. Cassie had a sudden queasy fear that her dad might mention Weber’s visit. At the moment, the lights were on and he seemed almost like his old self. That was all she needed, for Glenn to learn about Weber from her dad before she had a chance to explain. If she wanted any kind of relationship with Glenn, she needed to come clean and she needed to do it soon. He might understand if she explained. How the offer was too good to pass up and the Kingsley property would be developed anyway, with or without her dad’s five acres.
He might understand or he might not.
She was stewing over this, trying to figure out how she could find a few minutes alone with him when the Lexus lurched up the driveway with a terrible scraping sound.
“Is that my car?” her dad said.
The Lexus, with Andrew in it, limped to a stop. “I don’t know what happened,” he called. “It just started making this sound.”
Cassie jogged over and peered in the driver’s side window. The check engine light was lit up ominously.
Her father began moving in their direction too. “Dad,” she called, “why don’t you stay there and help Glenn with the bees. Andrew and I can deal with the car.” Her dad looked ready to object, but she hopped into the passenger seat and they crept up the driveway with that awful scraping noise.
“Where were you?” Cassie said.
“I just went over to CVS to get some Mylanta for Grandpa.”
She glanced over at him. “Have you talked to Dad?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
She wanted to ask if he’d made an appointment with the therapist, but the car was screeching and she could barely hear herself think.
She angled a look at the odometer, which had a hundred and seventy thousand miles. “Who knows the last time Grandpa had this serviced.” She opened the glove box. “Let’s see if he has any records in here. Don’t turn it off,” she cautioned. “We might not get it started again.”
The glove box contained only the manual, a tire gauge and a small purple flashlight that probably hadn’t worked in years. “What about his desk?” Andrew said. “I saw some files there when he asked me to look for a letter opener.”
“Where on his desk?” Her father’s desk used to be immaculate but now was a hazard, littered with random piles of paper. She needed to take over the bills, but that was going to require some delicacy.
“I’ll go see.” Andrew jumped out of the car, relieved to have a job to do.
