Melanie Dugan - Bee Summers

Bee Summers

By Melanie Dugan

Copyright 2014 Melanie Dugan

Smashwords edition

BEE SUMMERS

Melanie Dugan

Copyright 2014 Melanie Dugan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permissionfrom the publisher (or in the case of photocopying or otherreprographic copying, a licence from the licencing body such as theCanadian Copyright Licencing Agency/Access Copyright), except by areviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Anyresemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purelycoincidental.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing inPublication

Dugan, Melanie, author

Bee summers / Melanie Dugan.

ebook ISBN 978-0-9880627-6-4

I. Title.

PS8557.U3214B43 2014 C813'.6 C2013-908417-7

Book design and cover artwork by Darryl Joel Berger

UpStart Press

Kingston, ON

www.upstartpress.blogspot.com

For my father, Charles Hammond Dugan

1966

That was the spring I kept finding bees in the kitchen. Idcome downstairs in the dim early morning light and find a beewalking around and around in wobbly circles, buzzing in a lowgrumble as if it was annoyed at being awake so early.

Dad said the kitchen was an add-on, tacked on after the mainpart of the house had been built. It was lower than the rest of thehouse. When you came to the end of the hallway you had to step downto get into it. Lilac bushes in the yard crowded up close to thewindows. Their branches were as tall or taller than the kitchenwindows, and someone who had lived in the house before us hadpainted the kitchen walls a cool grey-green colour so even in themiddle of the afternoon on a sunny day the room was shadowy. Earlyin the morning it had a swimmy, underwater feeling.

The linoleum floor was a cold surprise against my bare feet.I was reaching into the cupboard to get a bowl for my cereal whensomething caught my eye a smudge of movement? I looked downinstead of up, and right beside my left big toe I saw the roundbody and six spiky legs of a bee.

My dad was a beekeeper so I wasnt afraid of bees. They werealways around, humming in and out of the hives he had down at theend of our long back yard. I took a dishcloth that was hanging fromthe handle of the oven door and dropped it over the bee, then Ipicked up the small bundle. Even through the layers of cloth Icould feel the bees outraged bristling, hear its angry buzz. Iopened the back door and flicked the dishcloth and the bee flew offinto the still-dark back yard.

I tugged the screen door shut figuring maybe it hadnt beenclosed tight enough the night before. There was a gap at one cornerif the door didnt click shut that was big enough for a bee tosqueeze through and into the kitchen. The house was old, wonky andoff-kilter, Dad said, and Mom was always calling, Melissa pullit shut behind you, when I went out the back door.

After I had let the bee go I poured some cereal into the bowland ate at the kitchen table. Dad was probably out on a back roadsomewhere, in his truck, on his way to one of his handyman jobs. Hedid those and the bees. A juggling act, he told me once when wewere on our way somewhere. Mom was still in bed asleep.

I always woke up early. Youre like your dad, Mom had toldme. She was not an early riser, she said so herself. She liked tosleep in lollygagging in bed, she called it and wanted to staythere until the sun was up. Thats all I want, shed say,laughing, but I knew that wasnt true she wanted other things,too, pretty scarves, flowers. And even though she laughed when shesaid it, it felt a little like she was scolding me for getting upearly.

One morning the next week there were two bees in the kitchen.I tossed them out the back door again without thinking about it. Afew days later it was three bees, the next week five, all doing acomplicated slightly wobbly dance, wobbly because the bees were soround they didnt glide along the floor, they waddled. But they didtheir dance like they meant it, like there was a reason for all theweaving and buzzing, like it was a story, something important forthem to tell. The morning I found seven bees I told Dad.

Nothing to worry about, he said. He had a quiet way oftalking, nothing hurried, nothing rushed. Bees dont like beingrushed Dad had taught me this. It irritates them. If you donthurt them, he continued, they wont hurt you.

I knew this wasnt true because I had been at my friendKaties house once when a bee flew into the living room, buzzedaround the room one time, hit its head on a lamp and then stung herbrother Kyle on the arm. I looked at Dad. Did he really believewhat he was saying or did he think that saying it would make ittrue?

This was one way my dad was different from my mom. Whensomething went wrong when the car wouldnt start or the washingmachine broke, or if the store didnt have the soap she wanted Mom got upset. She was upset about a lot of things: poor people,black people being treated badly, women being second class citizens especially women.

It has to change, shed say to Dad. Wed be sitting at thesupper table when they talked about these things, and when she saidthis it sounded like she wanted Dad to get out there and changewhatever was wrong.

Hed nod and say, Youre right about that, and servehimself and pass me the bowl.

Mom always seemed worried about things, like she felt she sawthe world, how it really, truly was, and Dad didnt, didnt take itseriously. Dad seemed to go the other way, he didnt seem at allworried, at least not worried enough for Mom. Once when they weretalking about the bills and they didnt know I could hear, shesaid, Just because you want everything to be fine doesnt mean itwill be, Nathan. He said something back to her I couldnt hearwhat and then she said, I suppose so, not like she reallyagreed with him, more like she was tired or bored and didnt wantto talk about it anymore.

They probably built a colony in the wall somewhere, Dad saidwhen I told him about the bees. We just have to figure out where.Keep your eyes open.

Two days later I was walking down the lane between our houseand the McKillens next door when I saw a little bee bum poking outof a hole in the wall of our house. The hole was in the greypowdery stuff between the bricks that was crumbling in this onespot. When Dad came home later I showed him where Id seen the beegoing into the house. It was late in the afternoon by then and thewall was warm from the sun. Four or five bees rose and settled inthe air in front of the hole, waiting their turn to enter, droningin a mumbly chorus.

Thatd be where theyre getting in. He nodded. Then hetilted his head and gave me a sideways look. Dont suppose youcould share a house with some bees?

I checked to see if he was making a joke. His face was mostlyserious. Apparently he wasnt. No.

He shook his head. Too bad. I hate to kill them. Heshrugged. Then he went to his pick-up truck and brought back someequipment. This wont hurt you, he told me, fiddling with sometubing and stuff. Its made from chrysanthemum those spikyflowers Aunt Hetty likes. Kills bees but not us.

Bees lived for flowers but this flower killed bees. Thisdidnt seem fair. I said so to Dad.

Some things arent fair, sweetie, he said, stuffing thetubing into the hole in the wall.

The bees didnt disappear right away. For a couple of weeksafterwards they kept showing up in the kitchen, but there werefewer and fewer of them. The ones that did show up didnt waddlearound the way the first ones had, like they meant it. These onesstaggered and fell, they rolled onto their backs, rocking back andforth, their legs waving jerkily in the air.

I told Dad about it, about how they walked differently. Henodded and said, When theyre well they do that walk, the onewhere they mean it we call it a dance to tell the other beeswhere the flowers are, but the powder confuses them.