Chapter Sixteen #2
When Glenn’s truck rolled up the driveway an hour later, her heart lifted.
Even with everything going on, the sight of him eased her.
Even his truck had a calming effect. Marsden Apiaries.
That word apiary, such a light soothing sound.
She clicked out of her computer and ran a brush through her hair.
Should she put on lipstick? That might be trying too hard.
They were teetering, that’s what they were doing.
Teetering on the verge of a relationship.
She didn’t remember ever feeling an attraction like this.
Not for Phil, not like this. It was more than physical, although that was certainly part of it.
Glenn was caring and smart and not self-absorbed.
And he had a compassion about him. Maybe because of the way his wife had treated him.
Not a master of the universe, just a decent, thoughtful guy.
She went ahead and put on a little lip gloss but despite her pleasure at seeing him, she couldn’t lose that nagging unease.
She hadn’t been honest with him about Weber.
She hadn’t lied, but she hadn’t been honest. What was the difference, really?
The truth was, she had a vested interest in the Weber development.
They wanted her dad’s property, and she wanted to sell.
Twenty-five acres in all if they could get it.
It made her a little sick that she was abetting a project like that.
Tearing down woods for a bunch of oversized, expensive homes.
A preserve would be lovely, but that wasn’t the real world. The real world was what you had to do.
On the porch Glenn was explaining something to her dad, who was listening attentively.
“I was just telling him that if the powdered sugar didn’t slow things down, we can try drone comb. I brought some trap frames just in case.”
She nodded like she knew what he was talking about. Sometimes he slipped into bee speak without realizing it. But her dad seemed to have an idea because he was already making his way down the steps to the truck. Glenn opened the passenger door and steadied him unobtrusively as he climbed in.
But where was her father’s car? It wasn’t in its customary spot on the driveway.
She’d returned the rental after the first week and was using her dad’s old Lexus to get around.
Thankfully, he didn’t drive much these days.
She’d been doing the grocery shopping, and Andrew had taken it once or twice to run errands.
She glanced up at the house to see if she could catch a glimpse of him in Shelly’s room, but the shade was drawn.
Where was Andrew? She texted him but got no response.
Glenn had her dad out of the truck by the time she walked down the driveway and across the field, the grass tickling her ankles. Her dad watched intently as Glenn checked the sticky mat for mites.
“You still have a problem.” Glenn tipped the mat so she could see. “See those red dots?”
She squinted over his shoulder. Along with bits of dirt and other debris, she saw a smattering of red specks along the white board.
“Those are just the ones that fell off,” he said. “If there are that many on the board, there’s a lot in the hive.”
“Same thing over here.” Her dad was inspecting the sticky board on the other original hive. “What was that thing you said we should do?” He looked at Glenn, uncertain about what had been proposed.
“Drone comb traps.” Glenn produced two green plastic frames from his truck. “Varroa mites prefer drone brood, so if we take out a couple of frames and substitute these, the queen will lay drone.”
The plastic frames looked flimsy, not like the sturdy wooden frames already in the hive. “Then what?” said Cassie dubiously.
“The mites crawl inside once the eggs are laid. Then we wait four weeks until the cells are capped, take out the frames and put them in the freezer for a couple of days. It kills the drone brood but gets rid of the mites.”
“You have to kill the brood?” Killing bees to get rid of mites seemed extreme.
“I know. It’s a little gruesome but effective. The colony doesn’t need all that drone anyway. And it might help keep down the mite population.”
“Isn’t there anything else you can do?”
“If you want to use chemicals,” he said disapprovingly, “which I don’t. Once you go down that road, you have to keep treating. This is treatment free—you’re not introducing toxins into your hives.”
Her dad had managed to lift the top off one of the boxes, and a few bees were drifting around.
Glenn lit the smoker, puffing it to get it going.
Cassie had a sudden queasy fear that her dad might mention Weber’s visit.
At the moment, the lights were on and he seemed almost like his old self.
That was all she needed, for Glenn to learn about Weber from her dad before she had a chance to explain.
If she wanted any kind of relationship with Glenn, she needed to come clean and she needed to do it soon.
He might understand if she explained. How the offer was too good to pass up and the Kingsley property would be developed anyway, with or without her dad’s five acres.
He might understand or he might not.
She was stewing over this, trying to figure out how she could find a few minutes alone with him when the Lexus lurched up the driveway with a terrible scraping sound.
“Is that my car?” her dad said.
The Lexus, with Andrew in it, limped to a stop. “I don’t know what happened,” he called. “It just started making this sound.”
Cassie jogged over and peered in the driver’s side window. The check engine light was lit up ominously.
Her father began moving in their direction too. “Dad,” she called, “why don’t you stay there and help Glenn with the bees. Andrew and I can deal with the car.” Her dad looked ready to object, but she hopped into the passenger seat and they crept up the driveway with that awful scraping noise.
“Where were you?” Cassie said.
“I just went over to CVS to get some Mylanta for Grandpa.”
She glanced over at him. “Have you talked to Dad?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
She wanted to ask if he’d made an appointment with the therapist, but the car was screeching and she could barely hear herself think.
She angled a look at the odometer, which had a hundred and seventy thousand miles. “Who knows the last time Grandpa had this serviced.” She opened the glove box. “Let’s see if he has any records in here. Don’t turn it off,” she cautioned. “We might not get it started again.”
The glove box contained only the manual, a tire gauge and a small purple flashlight that probably hadn’t worked in years. “What about his desk?” Andrew said. “I saw some files there when he asked me to look for a letter opener.”
“Where on his desk?” Her father’s desk used to be immaculate but now was a hazard, littered with random piles of paper. She needed to take over the bills, but that was going to require some delicacy.
“I’ll go see.” Andrew jumped out of the car, relieved to have a job to do.
She slid into the driver’s seat for a look, bumping the wiper arm by mistake.
They swished on briskly, chafing against the dry windshield.
That was annoying. She went to turn them off, but they kept on going.
She moved the lever in the other direction.
Okay. How ridiculous was this. She knew how to turn off windshield wipers.
She tried the other arm just in case, but that was the turn signal.
She switched that off, but the wipers were still going full speed.
She felt a sudden surge of anxiety. How could she not know how to turn off windshield wipers?
A terrible thought overtook her.
This was how it had been with her mom. Simple tasks that she was suddenly unable to do.
Putting on lipstick, even making the bed.
Her mom used to get confused about how to pull up the comforter and put the pillows in place.
Which step came first. In a sweat, Cassie ran through her coworker’s names: Leslie Gaines.
Malcolm Boskovitch. Fritz Irwin. Judith…
what was Judith’s last name? But Judith was in another department, and Cassie didn’t see her that much.
Oh God. She should know Judith’s last name. She’d been there for years.
She dropped her head on the steering wheel, startling when the horn sounded.
This was it. Her memory was starting to fail.
What she’d dreaded since she was sixteen.
The precipitous decline—already she couldn’t remember her coworker’s name!
And now, something as simple as windshield wipers.
In a sweat, she tried the lever again, then in a panic scanned the dash.
Okay, maybe not a lever after all. Maybe a knob.
Her heart pounded as she pressed every button she could think of.
No. That was the hazards. That was the radio!
That wasn’t it. It was probably right in front of her. Anyone else would see it in a second.
She scrambled out of the car but couldn’t escape the obvious.
She was forty-nine, the same age as her mother when it began.
She might have one more good year, but everything would become harder.
Soon she wouldn’t be able to hide it at work.
Straightforward matters would become byzantine.
Even everyday tasks around the house would become difficult.
Making coffee, measuring laundry detergent.
Where did you put it? How much were you supposed to use?
And Andrew. She teared up just thinking about how much she would miss, the years of his life she wouldn’t get to see.
Graduating from college, getting married.
If she was still alive, she would be oblivious.
And Glenn. Just when she’d found a man who rocked her world.
“You okay, what’s the matter?” Glenn said, slightly out of breath from hoofing it up the driveway. “I heard the horn and saw you jump out.”
“The wipers,” she sobbed. “I can’t remember how to turn them off.”
He ducked into the car and fiddled with the lever. “They’re not working. Could be a switch but the whole electrical system has probably gone fluky. I wondered if it might be something electrical when I heard that noise.” He gave them another try for good measure. “What year is this thing anyway?”
She sniffed. “You mean you can’t turn them off either?”
He moved the arm up and down. “Nope. Not working.” He shut off the engine and the wipers froze midstream.
She let out a shaky breath. It felt like someone had been sitting on her chest and now they weren’t. “So it’s not me?”
He slid out of the car and wrapped her in a hug. “No. It’s not you.” He held her tight, and she didn’t care that Andrew had come out of the house and was gaping at them. She didn’t even care that a man had had to rescue her. Right now, she needed Glenn. Period.
“Um…Mom?” Andrew was holding a manila folder. “I found the Lexus file.”
She wiped her eyes. “Ok, that’s good.”
Glenn started to step back, but she kept a hand on his arm. He was warm and solid and just touching him made her feel better. “Andrew, you know Glenn.”
Andrew nodded. He looked like he’d bitten into a candy with an unexpected filling and wasn’t sure whether to swallow or spit it out. “We met that day with the powdered sugar.”
“That’s right,” she said. “The powdered sugar.”
“I’ll uh go see how Grandpa’s doing.” Andrew set the file on the hood of the car and took off down the driveway.
Cassie couldn’t help smiling. “He doesn’t know what to do with this.” She gestured to the two of them. Her heart rate was beginning to return to normal, but the Alzheimer’s scare was real and terrifying. And just because it hadn’t happened today, didn’t mean it wouldn’t.
She swallowed. In two weeks she would know for sure.
Glenn gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You okay?”
“Not really. What if I do have Alzheimer’s?”
“Don’t look for trouble. This had nothing to do with you. Anyway, you have a more pressing problem.”
She glanced up in alarm. “I do?”
“Andrew and your dad are alone with the bees.”