“Can you ask Izzy if that armor could be a beekeeper’s suit, by any chance?”
“Izzy says yes. He wears the whole thing, white, with a black grid. No, I can’t say that to him, Izzy. He’ll think I’m crazy.”
“You can’t say what to me, Tyler?”
“Uhm, Izzy wants me to tell you that you, that the bees….”
“What’s with the bees?”
“She says to trust them. Silly, I know. They’re insects.”
“It’s fine, Tyler. I think I know what she means. Was there anything else?” Andi was obviously trying to wrap the call up without being rude to Tyler.
“No. Just…. Thank you, for listening. And for believing. You can’t imagine what it means to me.”
“You’re welcome, Tyler.” Andi didn’t offer more. The way he was staring at the phone, his gaze glazed over, made George wish he could drag his partner home to the couch so he could rest.
“Tyler, I think your father is doing his best. It’s difficult for him to understand, that’s all.”
A deep sigh came through the line. “I know. Bye, George. Bye, Andi.”
“Bye, Tyler.” Andi pressed the button to end the call.
“Do you really know what Izzy means? About the bees?”
The fly was now in Andi’s hair, rubbing its front legs together. George wanted to kill it.
“No and yes. I think she means the same thing I’m thinking. That the bees are the key.”
“Key or not, we need some sugar and caffeine first.”
“Amen to that.”
They got the fuel they needed to face the rest of the day, which consisted mainly of staring at the screens of their PCs and calling official places to confirm information about House Cusabo and the victims. Geena managed to find the owner of the bunker, one Thomas Cervill, who had died in 2012, one year before the first victims had been brought to his bunker. He had a son, Timothy Cervill, who seemed to like to stay off the grid but had land in his name right next to the grounds of House Cusabo. They agreed to pay him a visit first thing the next morning before they bid Geena, Sandra, and Tobias a nice evening.
On the way to Andi’s place, George bought some fresh vegetables to make stir-fry. Andi was silent until they reached the driveway.
“Would you meditate with me?”
George parked the car before he turned to Andi. “How bad is it?”
“Drowning, everything’s thick, like syrup, no traction, sinking, too much of everything, hate people, blobs, going under, I can hear everything, I know too much, always too much, you’re worried, don’t go, please don’t go, can’t without you, it’s suffocating me, like a blanket, but not warm, never warm, oppressing, I need—”
“I know what you need. Don’t worry, Andi.” George got out of the car and ran around to help Andi while he tried to calm his own breathing at the same time. No need to add fuel to the already blazing fire of Andi’s meltdown. If George had thought it would do any good, he would have cursed Chief Norris yet again. For a brief moment he wondered if curses were real, like sensing arthropods and talking to ghosts, and he knew he would wish the chief a bout of diarrhea while attending some important meeting with her higher-ups. Yes. The very detailed picture in his mind soothed his temper a bit.
“Why are you grinning like Jack Nicholson inThe Shining?”
“I just entertained the idea of curses being real and the chief getting hit by one.” George had Andi out of the car, walking beside him toward the house.
“How… very nice.” Andi didn’t have to explain because George could hear it in his voice—his partner was having similar ideas.
After they had taken off their shoes in the hall and George had deposited the vegetables in the kitchen, they both went to their rooms to have a shower and get changed. Meditation was best done in comfortable clothing. George made sure their cells were off while Andi put their yoga mats on the floor in the living room. He even went so far as to light a candle, which George had only seen their meditation teacher do. Unless the candle was the point of focus, it had no real purpose except for lending some ambience to the room, something Andi didn’t need because he was used to meditating, and George’s point of focus was Andi, or more precisely, Andi’s breathing.
They sat down across from each other. Andi was back in his ratty clothes, the socks especially begging for somebody to end their misery. But they were hand-knitted from sheep’s wool, and George had yet to find a suitable replacement. If the socks and trousers looked bad, not to mention the threadbare sweater, Andi himself was even worse. His skin was pale, paler than any white person had a right to be, blue veins starkly visible under what appeared to be more paper than a protective surface for the body.
George held out his hands to Andi. There was no sense in dwelling on how terrible his partner looked. There was also no sense in dwelling on how George now had a list of increments for how bad the visuals could get before he had to put his foot down and Andi in bed. And as sick as Andi appeared, he was still three to four stages from the worst. It made even less sense to think about how there was no list of positive signs—even in his most rested state, Andi still looked like he had just recovered from the flu.
Andi took George’s hands. He was cold to the touch, another sign of his exhaustion. Under different circumstances, George would have tried to get food into his partner before they started the meditation. The way Andi had made his need known, though, had told him there was no time for something as mundane as fuel for their bodies. If only he could get Andi to drink his green smoothies more regularly. George was convinced it would help. Unfortunately, Andi had the same views on green smoothies as a toddler had on greens in general—they happened to other people.
