Chapter Three #2
He rummaged through the fridge, settling on peanut butter and honey sandwiches.
When all else failed, he always had honey in the house.
His own honey. Lilah, who’d always been artistic, had designed the label for him when she was six.
A whimsical drawing of a bee on a flower.
He loved it and wouldn’t hear of changing it, even though she was after him to let her do something better.
He sold a lot of honey at craft shows and farmer’s markets, and people always commented on his label.
He found some oranges and brought it all to the table, with Charlie trotting along behind.
He’d slathered extra honey on Lilah’s sandwich, the way she liked it.
He felt bad about coming down on her, but he needed to be firm.
He remembered what it was like to be a teenager.
He and his brothers had gotten into plenty of trouble. And that was with two parents at home.
“I thought you were hungry,” he said. She was picking at her sandwich, not really eating.
She shrugged. “I guess not that much.”
The shrug reminded him of Sophie, the casual way she used to dismiss him with the bored hike of a shoulder.
It made him nervous on a level he could barely acknowledge.
That fear, never far from the surface, that Lilah might grow up, and like her mother, find him lacking.
She looked so much like Sophie, the blond hair and delicate features.
She was going to be tall like her mother too.
Right now she was gangly, but she’d grow into it.
He tore off a piece of his own sandwich and fed it to Charlie, a peace offering, even though he had a rule about not feeding the dog from the table. He had a lot of rules. Maybe that was why Lilah was starting to chafe.
“I saw that,” Lilah said with the hint of a smile.
“Yeah, I know.” He smiled back. “He’s such a beggar.”
“He rolled in something when I let him out before.”
He sniffed in Charlie’s general direction.
“Ah jeez, that’s what I smell. Where’d he go, the swamp?
” They joked that it was a swamp, but the yard actually sloped down to a wetland.
Skunk cabbage and milkweed. Marsh marigolds, with their riot of yellow flowers that were early forage for bees.
When a tree fell, it rotted where it lay, no one came to chip it up.
Not everyone wanted a wetland in their backyard, but he treasured it.
That was why he’d bought the house a decade ago.
A wooded neighborhood in an older modest section of Laurelton, a quiet place to raise bees and a family.
At the time, Sophie was still on board, although he should have seen signs of her discontent.
Lilah got up with her plate. “I don’t want any more,” she said, tipping the remnants of her sandwich in the dog’s bowl, which brought Charlie skidding across the kitchen.
Charlie was a rescue—part lab, part shepherd.
Maybe a little something else thrown in.
Good natured and smart enough to know where he’d landed.
Glenn hadn’t been keen on getting a dog—he had enough to do—but when did he ever say no to Lilah?
Charlie had been advertised as housebroken but wasn’t even close.
If he had an accident, and there were plenty, he always managed to hit the rug instead of the floor.
Lilah wouldn’t hear of locking him in a crate when they left the house, so Glenn papered the kitchen and hoped for the best. Charlie was a terror, but a lovable one.
As a puppy, he’d chewed up any shoe he could find and still surfed the counter for food the minute they left the room.
He was always overjoyed to see them whether it had been fifteen minutes or five hours, greeting them at the door with his hippo, his whole body vibrating with excitement.
Lilah had become moody but Charlie never wavered, always thrilled to chase a squirrel or roll in whatever disgusting thing he could find.
Charlie was the great leveler. Even when they couldn’t laugh at much, they still laughed at Charlie.
“Do you have any homework this weekend?” Glenn asked as he rinsed the plates.
“Just some math, which I already did. And we have a project for social studies.”
“Oh yeah? What’s it on?”
“We can choose. Either the causes of the Civil War or Reconstruction, you know, after the war.”
“So what are you thinking about?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t thought about it much yet.” She was drifting back toward the family room, but he didn’t want her on the couch all afternoon.
“When’s it due?”
“Don’t worry. I have plenty of time.”
“I’m not worried, just trying to stay on top of things. That’s all.”
“It’s my project. You don’t need to stay on top of it.”
“Hey!” He cut her a look. “There’s no call to speak like that.”
Out of nowhere she crumpled.
“Peanut, what’s the matter?” He smoothed her hair, a hard pit in his stomach as she sobbed into his sweatshirt. “Is it the project? I’m happy to help, or if you don’t want help, that’s okay too. I know I need to give you more space. I get that. I’m sorry.” Somehow he always managed to step in it.
“It’s not you.”
“Tell me then.” He could take pretty much anything except Lilah crying. That eviscerated him.
“I called Mom the other day, but she never called back. I even left her a message.” She buried her face in his chest and wouldn’t look at him.
So that was it. Goddamn Sophie. What kind of mother wouldn’t even pick up the phone?
She didn’t deserve a child in this life or any other.
He took a breath. Even when Sophie was being a shit, he tried not to badmouth her.
The child psychologist had made a point of telling him that he needed to support Lilah’s relationship with her mother.
Whatever shape it took. So he buttoned it up even when he wanted to wring Sophie’s neck.
“She’s probably just busy,” he said, rubbing Lilah’s back in small circles.
“I’m sure she’ll call when she gets a chance.
” He was so fucking sick of making excuses for Sophie, but how did you tell a kid her mother was a self-centered jerk who was never going to change?
It would have been better if Sophie had dropped dead.
The one time Lilah went to Colorado to see her mother had been a disaster.
Lilah had been eight, tentative about seeing the mother she hardly knew, but still young enough to be hopeful.
Glenn was wary but couldn’t think of a way to say no.
Right from the beginning, Lilah was homesick, calling to ask what Charlie was doing, inquiring about the bees.
There was a boyfriend in the house, which Glenn didn’t like.
Some other man around his daughter. Sophie, newly enamored with the idea of motherhood, bought books and toys for a younger child, then from what Glenn could tell got frustrated when Lilah didn’t use them.
She paraded Lilah around town, introducing her to friends but forgot a child needs lunch.
She sounded relieved when Lilah asked to come home early.
Lilah put a gloss on the visit once she got back, talking about Colorado and what they’d done, but Sophie didn’t return her calls, and Lilah wilted a little more each day, which made Glenn furious. It was one thing to trifle with him, unpardonable to hurt his daughter.
Lilah pulled back, eyes wet. “Maybe she’s backpacking and doesn’t have service. That happened before, remember?”
“Yeah, that’s probably it. You know how bad the service is there.
” He kissed her forehead, hoping she couldn’t see what he really thought.
Her optimism slayed him, how she found reasons to believe.
Doubtful that Sophie was backpacking in April, with the kind of snow they got in the mountains, but he wouldn’t lay bare the truth, that she just didn’t give a damn.
Sophie had never wanted to be a parent. Glenn was the one who’d urged her, said it would bring them closer.
Too young and na?ve to recognize they were never going to make it.
“Whatever.” Lilah swiped at an eye, ready to move on. Her mood changes were so quick he could never keep up.
“Hey, I’ve got to see a guy who’s having trouble with some bees. Why don’t you come with me? Shouldn’t take long. We can pick up Thai food on the way home from that place you like on Chestnut.”
“Maybe I’ll just stay here.”
“And do what, sit on your phone all afternoon? I doubt you’re going to start that social studies project this minute. Come with me; it’s a nice day. We can bring Charlie too.”
“Bring Charlie to some bee guy’s house? You never do that.” She looked skeptical, but he could tell she was wavering.
“We’ll leave him in the car with the windows open. He’ll think it’s great just to get out of the house.”
She smiled. “Yeah, he doesn’t care where he goes.”
“What do you say?”
She chewed a nail. “I don’t know…”
“Aw, come on. We’ll get ice cream too.”
“Sunny Daes?”
“Whatever you want.”
She brightened. Sunny Daes had sealed the deal. “All right, let me get his leash.”
Glenn took hold of the dog’s collar. “We better hose him down first.”
They rinsed the dog, who shook all over them, but at least was now semi-clean. They got in the truck with Charlie dripping in the back seat, and Glenn leaned over and mussed Lilah’s hair.
“What’s that for?” she said.
“Because I’ve got my daughter with me, and we’re going for Thai food and ice cream. Sounds like a pretty good afternoon to me.”
She rolled her eyes but she was smiling, which he counted as a win.