The front door opens and shuts. “Carol?” Mom calls from the kitchen.
“Coming,” I say, and gently pocket the seed. The bee disappears out the window.
Mom kisses my cheek when I come into the kitchen. “Thank you,” she says. “Did Alta help?” She inspects my face as she asks this.
“Yeah, big help,” I say. Mom raises her eyebrows, but I don’t feel like going into it, so I change the subject. “What happened at the doctor’s?”
She swallows, then swallows again — Mom’s procrastinating saying the truth out loud, which is how I know it’s not good news. “He’s getting worse. His brain is deteriorating faster than they can track it.”
My heart lurches. “They don’t have a pill that can stop it?” I say. “There’s no cure? No machine that can slow it down, or a surgery …”
Mom’s eyes flood. “Brain deterioration is irreversible. Once the Christmas lights are off, they’re off.”
I guess I had hoped Serge would stay only comically forgetful, in the shallows of dementia — misplacing his boots, barking at the people on TV like they can hear him, asking if Inés has been fed, over and over. I can live with a Serge like that. But instead Serge is going to drift further out to open sea, lost inside his own broken brain. Mom spots my bottom lip quivering and hugs me.
“Oh, hon,” she whispers.
The dam of tears threatens to break, but I hold it in, hold it in, hold it in …
“Where is he now?” I ask.
“Where else?” Mom says. “On the porch.” I take a deep breath and head out there.
Serge is in his chair, whittling. He doesn’t look different than he did this morning, doesn’t seem any deeper down the dark, drippy well of dementia.
“Caro-leeen-a,” he says, “what is that around your wrist?”
My entire body freezes solid. “A bracelet,” I answer truthfully. “A very old bracelet.”
“It suits you,” he says. “You look so much like her.” He breathes in deeply, his oxygen tube sighing. “Chiquita, does Inés have food?”
“Yes.”
“And water?”
Sigh. “Yes.”
He nods. “She’s a good dog.”
I sit on the top step. “Can you tell me the rest of the story? Do they really chop down the tree?”
He stares at the ridge, eyes in story-land already.
“Yes, they chopped down the tree. Left a scab on the land.” Serge’s knife moves like a blur. “Once upon a time …”
I mouth along with him, blinking back tears, there was a tree.
Once upon a time, there was a tree.
And they cut it down.
Not at first.
First, Rosa took Sergio’s whittling knife, crawled up to their favorite branch, and removed small pieces of the coal-black bark, the size of ribbons. One for everyone.
The villagers stood around the trunk, whispering prayers of hope. Rosa would free a strip of bark, then toss it below to a giddy soul, who would press it to his heart: his token of freedom. Bees darted around the villagers’ heads, annoyed by these confounded humans who blocked the blossoms and skinned the tree alive.
When every villager but one had a piece of the tree, they celebrated with a feast of mutton and grilled cactus flowers. Sergio paced the lake’s shore, nibbling his meat. His eyes stayed on the starry sky to avoid watching Rosa, who was the fiesta’s lifeblood. Every time she danced, his gut lurched.
The people asked Sergio to use his whittling skills on their bark strips, and at first he resisted. Why should he help them, when they voted to leave the village? To leave him?
But he relented, carving a talisman for every man, woman, and child. He skipped sheep chores to work on them, compelled to touch each piece of bark himself. He carved the wood as penance. Since he couldn’t stop the villagers from cutting up the tree, he wanted to make the butchered wood into something beautiful, something to remind them of home while they traveled. He shaped the bark into many things: pendants laced onto string; wooden brooches; barrettes for a girl with wild dark hair; charms shaped like the tree itself.
Carolina asked for such a charm and attached it to her collar as a brooch.
Rosa was the only one who preferred her bark plain — just the raw, untouched bark on the leather strip.
Then it happened. People started leaving. One family at a time, they tiptoed away from the lake and danced over the ridge. They camped under different stars, then returned.
They trekked into open desert and met up with coyotes. Snakes. Spiders. Cliffs. Rushing rivers with shifting, tricky currents. Purple lightning strikes. But they always returned.
Such a cautious dance for a people who had never needed caution before.
Once upon a time, there was a tree. And they cut it down.
Not yet.
But they did wish to go farther.
They sought reassurance from Rosa. “Will the bark really be enough? Such a tiny piece of the tree will really protect us from death?”
Rosa reassured, but still they fretted. “Take more, if you’re worried,” she said.
So they sawed off branches — just a few at first — and Sergio whittled fishing poles for the fathers to fish with, toy swords for the boys to fight with, baby dolls for the girls to swaddle. He even made carts for the horses to pull. There seemed no end to the amount of lumber provided by the tree. Gradually the tree was stripped of bark and limbs, a naked black beam pointing to heaven.
Sergio never saw what happened to the tree’s white blossoms. Neither did the bees, whose collective angry buzz rang through the village long after sundown every night.
Whole families left. The mission grew emptier night after night, and Sergio walked the halls counting who remained. Once, no one had ever left. Now they were gone, all gone.
This time, when the villagers came home, they fell to their knees at the shores of the green-glass lake and kissed the water. Months away from home made them sentimental. They brought back their own souvenirs this time, evidence of their own bold travels: their own totems, their own treasure boxes from the East, their own seashells.
They returned greedy. Hungry for more of the world — for more of the tree.
They hacked wood from the bald tree, clawed it from the trunk, tore it, ripped it away at odd angles, splintered and raw. Instead of prayers under their breaths, they spoke loudly and grandly of their travels, sharing stories around the bonfire at their annual summer festival. Sergio tended to his sheep and watched his people take, take, take, like buzzards plucking flesh from a man still pumping blood.
“She’s gone too far,” he murmured to Carolina, while Rosa exchanged upcoming travel plans with neighbors.
Carolina widened her eyes at Sergio. “She’s only just started,” she said, and walked to her sister.
The white blossoms never grew back. That sweet honey-vanilla scent faded from the village, replaced with the smell of sweat. Bee clouds swirled above the remnants of the tree, their buzzing louder than the new harsh wind that howled across the lake. The bees were desperate for pollen. But the blossoms were now a thing of the past.
The past. The village was supposed to be a place immune to pasts, presents, and futures, but now there would forever be a division — a before and after. Before, when the tree was living. After, when the villagers were living and the tree was not.
A new way of measuring time.
Father Alejandro asked Sergio to carve him a canoe, so Sergio, his heart heavy, shaped a chunk of tree into a sleek one-man boat, which the Father took on his trip to a northern sea. A deadly hurricane struck, but the Father survived and brought the boat back. “The gift lives on,” he said, and smiled in a wild way that reminded Sergio of Rosa.
A village family with three daughters had Sergio make a frame for a portable longhouse. The girls painted symbols and pictures on the wood, then they carted it up a treacherous mountain range in the West. When an avalanche of snow buried them alive, they climbed out and w
alked away, unharmed. “The gift lives on,” they said.
“The gift lives on,” Rosa repeated to her husband, the rare times she was home.
“So it seems.” Sergio scanned the once-bustling village in the oasis, now a row of dusty abandoned shacks.
On a morning Sergio had planned to spend caring for his pregnant ewes, Rosa rode into the pasture. Inés abandoned the sheep to greet her, and Sergio helped her off her horse.
“Welcome home, mi cielo,” he said. “Back so soon? You only left three weeks ago.”
“I wanted to be home.”
Sergio raised his eyebrows — all the glorious world to travel to, and Rosa chose the village? “How long will you be staying this time?”
“Until the spring,” she said.
Sergio stared. “You’re staying for eight months?” Could it be she was finally cured of her wanderlust?
Rosa smiled, her eyes soft. “I’m staying until our baby comes.”
Sergio’s legs shook. He felt a thousand things at once: fear and nerves and complete, childlike elation. “A baby,” he whispered, and his heart nearly burst.
Once upon a time, there was a tree, and Rosa sat on the grass, leaning into the trunk, her husband at her side with his hand on her swollen belly.
“What shall we carve for the little one?” she asked.
“Carve?” Sergio repeated.
“For when the baby travels,” Rosa said. “A carriage, of course, and a crib made of the wood. But you could carve the baby some toys — a rattle, a doll, a set of blocks …”
With a pang, Sergio realized his child would only ever know the tree as lumber.
Once upon a time, there was a tree. And they cut it down.
It’s always hot at the ranch, but tonight, our last night, the heat’s suffocating.
Lu’s been fussing for twenty minutes straight. I’ve tried everything: peekaboo, a puppet show, tossing “dog treats” (Cheerios) into his mouth like he’s a puppy. But Lu fusses in a steady stream until it’s background noise. I check one of the ancient fans we have propped in the windows around the ranch house. Yes, it’s cranked up to full blast, but the fans don’t cool anything off. They just push this hot air around in circles.
It’s driving me crazy.
“Mom.” I fuss a little myself. “Make him stop.”
“He’s got the big three going on,” Mom says. “Hot, hungry, and tired.”
“Aren’t we all,” I mutter, and drag him to Mom. She’s zombie-tired, too, her hair a black nest at her collarbone, but she cuddles Lu to her shoulder while hunting through the pantry for dinner inspiration. Most of the kitchen is packed at this point, which makes our meal options slight.
“Shh,” she tells Lu. “I know, I know, it’s the witching hour.”
That’s what Mom calls this time of day, right before dinner: the witching hour. It’s the perfect description. The border between real life and the impossible feels thin, hazy.
Also, we all turn into grouchy, pouting witches. If I knew a spell that could snap dinner onto the table and smiles on our faces, I’d do it.
Alta’s at the kitchen table, her huge fuchsia headphones covering half her head (sister code for “do not disturb under pain of death”).
Mom’s now opened the fridge for the third time, groaning when no new food magically appears. She forgot to hit the grocery store on her last drive back from Albuquerque.
“Can’t we just call in a pizza?” I say.
Mom shakes her head. “It’s too far to deliver.”
“It’s too hot!” I moan, and lie flat on the kitchen linoleum.
Mom steps over me to get to the sink. “Move, please? You’re in the road.”
I roll until I’m barely out of the way. “I can’t breathe,” I say.
“Carol,” Mom says, and I stop the whining. I hate when my own name is used as a weapon.
I roll one more time and reach in my pocket to rub the seed. I’ve carried it with me since that day I found it in the closet. In a house where death hides around every corner, it’s reassuring to touch something so alive. At least, I hope it’s alive.
The witching hour …
Even the sky is witchy tonight, halfway between light and dark, sun and sunless, blue and amber, starry and blank. My own fuse feels shorter than usual. I want Lu to be quiet, Mom to cook dinner, and me to be zoning out, watching the Disney Channel until bed.
Impossible. The TV is packed, anyway.
Tomorrow we’ll put the big-ticket items into the moving van Mom brought down instead of the minivan: tables, couches, beds. We’ll fit the rest of the boxes in, too, filling the gaps and holes in a 3-D version of Tetris. We’ll sweep the floors, turn out the lights, and head back to Albuquerque on that long, lonely highway.
I’ve been counting down the days all summer. I thought I’d be more excited to go home.
There’s a crash outside. The whole house rattles.
Alta rips off her headphones and points out the window. “Fire!”
“What?” Mom nearly drops Lu in her rush to the window.
I smudge my face against the glass. The evening has an orange glow. Yes, a fire — but where?
There’s yelling, too. One of the voices is definitely Serge, hollering from the porch in curse-laced Spanish. Dad responds with a few choice phrases of his own. He sounds underwater.
Serge practically bounces out of his chair with fury, sucking oxygen in gulps. “Put it out, put it out!” he cries.
Mom, Alta, and I beeline it to the porch. Across the pasture, the barn is ablaze, burping balls of fire into the evening air. Wooden beams snap, walls crumble. The whole thing will be gone in minutes.
“Should I call the fire department?” Alta holds up her phone.
“What fire department?” Mom says, bouncing Lu on her hip. “The closest one is fifty miles away.” I guess in the desert, when something’s on fire, you just let it burn.
“Barn’s on fire!” Serge yelps. Mom touches his shoulder, and he jerks away, looking pained. “Make it stop, make Raúl stop!”
“Raúl!” Mom grips the porch rail with white knuckles.
I’m paralyzed, staring at the fire. Flames look so different on TV, almost cartoonish; in real life, the fire’s as big as the sun.
“Burning, burning, too hot!” Serge cries.
“Alta, go get Serge some water,” Mom says. Alta, to her credit, doesn’t put up a fight — she rushes right away.
“Is dinner ready?” Dad calls from the pasture.
“The barn, Raúl!” Mom shrieks.
“I know. So do we have dinner ready or what?” Dad says. “I’m starving.” He’s burning the barn on purpose; why else would he so casually stroll into the front yard while the rest of us gawk at the fireball shining behind him like the world is ending? Even with the flames amplifying the desert heat to core-of-the-earth temperatures, I shiver; the image of my dad silhouetted against a fire is eerie.
“You started a fire in a drought? Are you nuts?” Mom shoves Lu into my arms, heavy as a sack of flour, and charges down the steps.
“It’s fine,” Dad snaps. “It’s contained.” He finds his beer on the porch railing and swigs it.
I gasp when the firelight illuminates his face — Dad’s eyes are bloodshot and watery, swollen from a summer’s worth of work on just slivers of sleep. Sweat glistens on his forehead and neck. He doesn’t look like he’ll even last until tomorrow.
Serge is mad enough to melt into a puddle of flabby skin. His sentences start in English, then run off a cliff and fall into angry, broken Spanish. “You burned my barn. You’re coming for me next. You’ll roast me alive with the sheep!”
“Calm down, Papá,” Dad says. “The barn had termites. Wood with termites has to be burned, you know that. No one’s coming for you.”
“You are.” Tears leak down Serge’s cheeks, bending like rivers around the bumps. “You put my things in boxes. You’re going to put me in a box. Then you’ll burn it all down.”
>
“Papá, none of that is happening.”
“Uh, Mom?” Alta comes outside with Serge’s water, forehead wrinkled in what appears to be genuine concern — a rare sight. She angles her whisper out of Serge’s earshot: “Something’s wrong with the dog.”
My throat tightens. Not Inés.
Mom passes Serge his water. “Raúl!” she calls. “Come quick!”
When Dad walks past his father’s chair, Serge cries once more, “You’re going to burn everything down!”
I don’t want to leave Serge alone, babbling and blubbering in his wicker chair, but Mom calls for me to join the family in the kitchen.
We gather near the counter, and my heart is shipwrecked at the sight: sweet, strong Inés lies cold on the linoleum, legs stiff.
“Is she breathing?” Mom asks.
Dad kneels beside the old dog, stroking her head, her neck, her face. “Barely,” he says, a tremor in his voice. Yes, if I watch around her collar, Inés’s neck rises and falls, but slowly, like each exhale hurts.
“Oh, Inés,” Dad says, and I can’t tell if he believes this is really Inés, pet of his childhood, or if he’s still just playing along. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore.
“How old would she be, again?” I ask.
Dad looks at us, his exhausted eyes brimming with a lifetime of memories. “Old Inés has always been around.” He rubs her floppy ears.
Lu fusses, then turns to Jell-O and slides out of Mom’s arms. He coos, patting Inés on the head, then looks mystified when she doesn’t respond.
“Say bye to the dog, Lu.” Dad can barely choke this out.
Then it happens. Inés takes her last breath, and when her chest falls, it doesn’t rise again. She’s gone.
No more early morning scratches at the front door. No more tail whacking against my knee at the dinner table. No more dog sighs punctuating the sweltering afternoons. I could have measured my summer with that dog.
How will Serge take this? He asks if Inés has been fed as often as I hear bees buzzing. My heart hurts so much, I ache down to my toes. I’ve never seen anything die. I put my hand in my pocket and hold on to the seed.
Hour of the Bees Page 12
