Cassie pushed back his hair for a look. Sure enough the tender skin behind his ear was already going puffy and red.
“How can you tell if it was a wasp or a bee?” Shelly said.
“Must have been a wasp the way they came after me. Grandpa says they’re way more aggressive than bees.”
“Don’t rub it.” Cassie wrapped a couple of ice cubes in a dish towel. How on earth did you get rid of wasps? She didn’t know the first thing about them, except they were bad news. Andrew getting stung was bad enough, but her dad was just coming off a heart attack. A wasp sting could be downright dangerous for him. She handed Andrew the ice. “Hold it there, sweetie. It’ll keep it from swelling.”
“It’s already swelling,” he grumbled but sat in a kitchen chair and applied the ice to his neck.
Her father, who’d settled at the table for lunch, looked agitated. “We never had wasps before. Where did you say they were?”
Cassie sent Andrew a warning look but he didn’t notice. “Down by the hives, but this one got me at the mailbox.”
“I need to get down there and take a look.”
Cassie exchanged a worried glance with Shelly. The last thing they needed was their dad over-exerting himself with a last-ditch effort to save his hives. “Dad, maybe we should just leave them. What can you possibly do?”
But he was up and moving, nosing the chair out of the way with his cane.
“Wait Grandpa!” Andrew said. “You don’t have your veil on. You can’t go down there like that.”
“Dad.” Shelly tried to steer him back to the table. “How about we call the bee guy.”
Cassie’s stomach took an unhappy dip. She’d heard a big fat nothing from Glenn; he hadn’t returned any of her messages. She’d had her phone with her constantly, her heart taking off every time she got some stupid alert. She’d tried texting him too but not a word. Whatever scrap of hope she’d had that they could find a way back to each other had been shredded. He’d made his feelings perfectly clear.
“We’re not calling Glenn,” she said.
Andrew gave her a puzzled look. “Why not?”
“He’s not available.”
“He’d probably come for this,” Shelly said quietly.
“No.”
“Andrew.” Her father was chafing by the door. He’d cast off the walker and gone back to the cane. “Where’s that veil?”
Andrew looked helplessly between his mother and his aunt. “It’s um…coming. I’ll go get it.”
“Cassie,” Shelly whispered, “maybe you should just call him. Tell him it’s an emergency.”
“It’s not an emergency, it’s just a few wasps.” But her skin prickled at the thought of what might be going on out there. Still, no way was she calling Glenn. He would think she was pathetic, inventing an excuse. Even if he agreed to come out of some sort of professional duty, it would be unbearable. Him all stiff and formal. She knew exactly how he’d be. They would deal with it on their own.
“More than a few, Mom,” Andrew put in. “Look. There’s some right here by the house.”
They all peered out the narrow window next to the front door. Outside, a pair of yellowjackets cruised lazily like they owned the place. A few months ago, Cassie wouldn’t have been able to tell them from bees, just another stinging insect. But now she recognized the pinched waist and vivid yellow stripes. Yellowjackets were a kind of wasp, a sleeker, more lethal cousin to the homely honeybee. Bees wore themselves out traipsing from flower to flower in search of nectar and pollen. But wasps were opportunists. They hounded you at picnics, they’d eat your hamburger or dive bomb your soda. Instead of turning pollen into honey like the industrious bees, they invaded weak hives, stole their honey and sucked the life out of the brood while they were at it.
Her dad paced by the window. In another minute there would be no stopping him.
“I’ll go take a look,” Cassie said reluctantly. “Andrew, can you get the smoker?” Smoke might get rid of them. It seemed to calm the bees, maybe it would drive off the wasps. At least enough to give the bees a chance to regroup. Her heart knocked around her chest thinking of all those stingers, but she couldn’t just abandon the bees to their fate. They were her dad’s last connection to her mom, the one constant in his life.
“You’re going out there?” Shelly said. “You’re crazy.”
“What else can I do? If I don’t go, Dad will.” But inwardly, she wilted at the thought of wading into a firestorm of wasps with only a tin can full of smoke.
Andrew appeared with the bee suit and Cassie stepped in, zipping up the jacket tight, snapping on gloves. Andrew ventured onto the porch with her, both of them glancing around apprehensively, but the outliers had flown off. “Grandpa’s still looking out the window,” Andrew said as they lit newspaper in the smoker to get it going.
“Maybe you can get him to work on a puzzle, keep him occupied for a few minutes.”
