Welcome to the Honey B&B

Chapter 1

1

Honey

Honey McKerry suppressed the urge to firmly lower the cast-iron skillet directly onto her husband’s slightly balding noggin. Instead she blew out the breath she’d been holding during her attempt to count to ten, then slowly turned away, reminding herself for the hundredth time, CT can’t help it. She set the heavy pan back on the stove and opened the upper cabinet, removing the overly familiar jars of peanut butter and honey. Jif Extra Crunchy and McKerry’s homegrown honey—CT’s favorite go-to sandwich, well, unless he changed his mind midstream, like he’d done just now.

“You’re sure you don’t want eggs, then?” She carefully placed the pair of freshly laid brown eggs back into the recycled egg carton. Her Plymouth Rock hens had really started producing when spring warmed up, but like so many things in her life since CT’s illness had progressed, caring for chickens had become too much, so she’d given them to Marta and Anna next door. She repeated herself. “Sure you don’t want eggs, CT?”

“No, no. My legs are okay,” he replied confidently.

“I said eggs .” She peered into his face to make sure he understood her. “Not legs.” Although it wasn’t a leap to speak of legs since his bothered him some. When he ignored her, she put her last carton of homegrown eggs back in the fridge. Maybe she’d fry up a couple for herself later, if she got hungry. She should’ve known when CT demanded scrambled eggs for breakfast, he would forget or change his mind. And by the time he’d dressed and made his way to the kitchen, a task that took nearly an hour, their morning egg conversation had floated off to the twilight zone.

“Oh, yeah.” He nodded as he picked up the newspaper. “Eggs are good.”

Sometimes she felt as confused as him. Maybe it was catching. She studied him before speaking. “So you don’t want the peanut butter sandwich after all?”

“Yeah. Eggs and a sandwich. Like I said.” He slid his chair toward the kitchen table, then opened the paper and pretended to read. She knew he was just looking at photos, maybe trying to make out a few headlines. But it had been almost a year since reading for retention became too much for him. For some reason she liked that he kept up the pretense. Maybe it made them both feel better ... or at least gave her a moment of peace, knowing he was occupied.

She got the eggs back out. “You must be pretty hungry, CT.”

He patted his flat stomach. “Oh, yeah. Ravished.”

“Okay then.” She smiled at his misused word. It just went with the territory. Eighteen months had passed since his diagnosis. She still remembered CT’s response when the neurologist explained that he had FTD.

“Am I going to deliver flowers?” he’d asked with a twinkle in his dark brown eyes. They’d all laughed at his wit, but underneath Honey’s cheery veneer, a cold chill had swept through her. She’d heard of FTD, and it wasn’t good.

Oh, she wasn’t blindsided by the diagnosis. Clearly, something had been going on for some time. But at the beginning of the testing, she’d never expected anything this life-altering and serious. At first the professionals blamed CT’s forgetfulness on his hearing loss, then perhaps sleep apnea, and finally, after dealing with both issues, the doctors had suggested hydrocephalus, which was treatable. But after six months of acquiring new hearing aids, a frustrating month trying a CPAP machine, and various doctors and specialists and tests, CT’s brain scans revealed frontotemporal dementia—or disorder , her preferred substitute for the D word. “Just like Bruce Willis,” she would sometimes say to lighten things up. After all, CT had been a big Die Hard fan. But unfortunately, most of the time, the poor guy didn’t really get it.

“Did you feed the cat?” she asked absently as she cracked an egg into the pan.

“No. Don’t need a hat.”

She rolled her eyes and picked up another egg. “Got your hearing aids in, CT?”

He reached up to check an ear, then sheepishly shook his head before returning to his faux reading. She knew she should nag him to go fetch them instead of simply getting them herself. While it was good for him to do what he could while he could, it was just so much quicker to do things for him. She put the last of the eggs in the pan, gave them a quick stir, then jogged up to the bedroom, where his hearing aid charger was supposed to be plugged in on his bedside table.

To her dismay, though not her surprise, the charger was AWOL again. Now it was off to the various other locales where he liked to relocate miscellaneous items. Never mind that she’d told him time and again that the bedroom was handiest. “The Lone Rearranger strikes again,” she muttered as she checked his bathroom, which looked like it had been hit by a small tornado and smelled like a middle school boy’s locker room. Next she looked in the den, where CT kept an odd assortment of unrelated bits and pieces and piles of books he’d once read and liked to imagine he would read again someday. She quickly sifted through a basket of charger cords, dead batteries, and a dysfunctional wristwatch and was about to hit the storage room under the stairs when she heard the smoke alarm going off.

The eggs!

She dashed back to the kitchen and turned off the flame beneath the now-blackened eggs, which were solidly adhered to the pan. She opened a window, then flipped on the exhaust fan, attempting to ignore her frantic husband as he hopped around, yowling and flapping his arms like a crazed chicken. “Make it stop!” he cried, covering his ears and wearing the anguished expression of a frightened four-year-old.

“Go outside.” She took him by the arm and directed him toward the back porch. “Check on your bees.” She nodded toward the stacked boxes of hives and led him outside. She wasn’t a big fan of bees, but for some reason CT adored the buzzy little beings. He used to call his hives his peaceful place .

He nodded, clutching her hand and groaning with each step as he ambled down the porch stairs. On solid ground, he began to mumble. “My bees ... yeah, bees don’t burn down your house. Coming, bees, coming.”

“Right.” She watched him weaving slightly as he made his way to his beloved hives. Reassured he was okay, she went back inside. The kitchen was still smoky and the alarm still blaring. She got out her stepladder and, stretching high, reached for the smoke alarm, balancing precariously as she pressed the red button and waited for it to stop screaming at her. As she climbed down, she felt a bit shaky. This was something her big, strong husband used to do for her. A lump swelled in her throat, but she reminded herself this little event was not tear-worthy. Better to laugh ... when she could.

Still, it was hard to let go of some things. Her can-do, capable husband used to handle so much for her. CT, at six foot six, was a man’s man who could build almost anything, repair almost anything, hunt wild game. Like a country boy, he could survive. The man could plant and grow and dance a pretty good two-step. He even managed the bills and knew how to file tax returns, something she was still grappling over. But after their checking accounts got seriously messed up a few years back due to CT’s disease, she’d taken over the business end of things and let him take over the simple things that hadn’t overwhelmed him at first, like replacing light bulbs or smoke alarm batteries or taking out the trash.

But those days were gone now too. CT always forgot which day the garbage truck came. Sometimes she’d go racing out in her bathrobe, running the can down their driveway, waving to the truck driver to stop. Ladders messed with his balance. Tools were dangerous. And unexpected noises like a smoke alarm were unnerving. Even if he could’ve handled the noise and scaled the ladder, he’d probably forgotten how to make the smoke alarm stop blasting by now.

Honey sighed and scraped the burned eggs into her clean white sink, staring for a moment at the blackened ugliness as she washed it down the garbage disposal. Then realizing the skillet would require more attention, she decided CT would have to settle for a peanut butter sandwich after all. Along with a big glass of milk and a banana. He’d have forgotten about the eggs by now anyway. One benefit of FTD.

She carried his breakfast into the clean outside air and found him investigating something by the barn. Feeding the barn cat? She doubted it as she whistled for him, waving him over to the picnic table. She watched as he attempted to insert more spring in his step, but he still walked like a man two decades older than his years.

“That’s what I want.” He pointed to the sandwich. “Peanut butter ’n honey. Honey from my Honey.” He grinned at her. “And from my bees too.”

“How are your bees?” She watched him ease himself onto a bench.

“Happy. Happy bees ... happy honey.” He looked up with adoring eyes. “Bee honey is sweet. Not as sweet as my Honey.”

She patted his shoulder. How many times had she heard that line? And yet she never really tired of it. “CT is sweet too.”

“Is the house burned up?” His creased frown revealed he was dead serious.

“No, dear, the house is fine. The kitchen is fine.”

“You be careful. Stove is hot. Dangerous.”

She remembered when she used to tell him that very thing, back when he still thought he could cook. Now she just removed the knobs when she was done cooking. She was tempted to point out that she’d been on his errand, off looking for his missing hearing aid charger, when the stove got dangerous, but why bother?

“Where’s your sandwich?” he asked as she turned away.

“I’m going back for it,” she said, even though she had no intention of having peanut butter and honey. It was easier to play along than explain. By the time she brought back her coffee to sit with him, he wouldn’t remember. Then as she went up the porch steps, her phone rang from her pocket. Planning to ignore it, she peeked at the caller ID to see it was Jewel. And since her daughter rarely called, she answered.

“Hey, Jewel,” she said pleasantly. “How’s my favorite girl?”

“I’m your only girl, Mom. But I guess I’m okay.”

Honey heard the terseness in her daughter’s tone. “So, what’s up?”

“It’s Cooper. I’m getting worried.”

“Well, Cooper is almost fourteen. It’s natural to be a little concerned. But she’s always been a good girl.” Honey poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table, tracing a finger over the wood grain. This old oak table once belonged to her grandmother, right here on this very same farm.

“I’m worried about the new friends Cooper’s been making.”

“Oh, new friends?” Honey felt a spark of concern. She’d worked in a middle school for twenty years, long enough to know that new friends could be good ... or bad.

“You know how kids are, Mom. How influential peers can be at this age.”

“Yeah.” Honey sipped her coffee.

“Especially to a girl with low self-esteem.”

“Since when has Cooper had low self-esteem?”

“Since her best friend Molly dumped her and started talking smack about her.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Middle school girls could be so cruel.

“So Coop started hanging with these new friends, and I don’t like to judge anyone, but they seem pretty rough. I think their parents totally ignore them.”

“That’s not good.”

“And school lets out on Thursday.” Jewel’s tone was desperate.

“And you’re worried about her being unsupervised for the summer?” Honey brightened. “Why don’t you send her up here to visit? I could actually use a hand.”

“With Dad?”

“Well, him ... and farm work and lots of things.” Honey looked out the window to where the lavender field was just starting to green up, but the weeds were greening up too. And then there were the pumpkins that hadn’t been planted yet ... She doubted CT would be up to it this year. “I’m positive we could keep her busy.”

“And out of trouble.” Jewel let out a relieved sigh.

“And your dad would love having her around.”

“Tell me the truth, Mom. How is Dad?”

Honey stood, phone in one hand and coffee mug in the other, and went to look out the back window. CT was still sitting peacefully at the picnic table, peeling his banana. “He’s okay. Well, for him, anyway.”

“But the illness. How is he handling it?”

“Oh ... the same as before. He forgets things. Overreacts to things. Tires out pretty easily. Not much has changed since the last time we talked. Only perhaps...” She bit her lip. “A little worse.” Okay, that was an understatement. But why worry Jewel? She had her hands full single parenting a teenager and running a struggling business in a less than stellar economy. “How’s the art gallery doing?”

“About the same as the last time we talked,” Jewel parroted her. “Not so great.”

“Maybe with summer coming it’ll pick up?”

“Look, Mom, I have an idea.” Jewel’s tone was suddenly lighter. “What if Cooper and I both come back to Oregon? We can help with the farm and spend some time with Dad while he can still remember our names.”

Honey felt slightly defensive, as well as uncertain. She’d welcome help but knew Jewel could be a handful at times. And while the farmhouse had enough bedrooms, the shared spaces would be a challenge. How would it feel to share her kitchen with a stubborn young woman with strong opinions on almost everything? Who knew where that might lead? Add to that mix a teenage girl recently uprooted from her friends—it sounded like a recipe for disaster.

“Oh, I don’t know, sweetheart.” Honey tried to think of a tactful rejection. “That’s a big change for you and Cooper. It’s too much to ask of—”

“It’s not too much. In fact, it’s settled. My friend Jess has been begging to buy my gallery since Christmas, and I’d almost made up my mind to sell to him. It was a fun project, but I’m done now.”

“Really?” Honey wasn’t so sure. “You love that gallery.”

“That was then. This is now. Honestly, Mom, I think we’ve come up with the perfect plan. Cooper and I will help you with Dad. And I’ll have more time for my art, something I’ve missed lately. Plus, it’ll get Coop away from her new friends. It’s decided. I’m going to call Jess right now and—”

“You need to give this careful consideration, Jewel,” Honey interrupted. “That’s a huge life decision. Don’t be too hasty and—”

“I’m not being hasty. It’s been silently percolating in me for a while now. I just didn’t have time to really wrap my head around it. But we’re coming, Mom. You can count on us. I gotta go. I need to work out a deal with Jess and a dozen other things. Talk to you later. Love you.” And before Honey could protest, Jewel hung up.

Honey just shook her head as she went to finish cleaning up her eggs. Frowning at the messy skillet, she pulled out a Brillo pad and began to scrub. Jewel was too impulsive. Dropping out of college just one semester before graduating. Then her hasty marriage to wealthy Rodney Benedict, a man with four failed marriages behind him. What a mismatch that turned out to be. Then her ill-timed pregnancy, hoping it would save her unraveling marriage. Even if marrying Rodney had been a mistake, Cooper was a treasure.

Then without thinking it through carefully, Jewel had invested her entire divorce settlement into that art gallery—just a few months before the COVID pandemic hit. Although, in Jewel’s defense, Honey thought that had turned out all right. So why did she want to abandon it now?

Honey ground the steel wool into the cast iron with a vengeance. Sure, not all Jewel’s impulsive choices had foreseeable results, but leave it to that girl to jump out of the frying pan and straight into the fire. Honey just hoped her impetuously headstrong daughter would come to her senses before letting history repeat itself ... again.