Chapter Twenty-Five
Glenn tapped on Lilah’s door, which was slightly ajar. The girl, cross-legged on the bed, looked up warily from her phone.
“Can I sit?” he asked.
She pulled out her earbuds, which he took for a yes.
“A lot of times my first reaction is no,” he said.
“That’s not a good way to be, and I’m working on it.
Even adults can be a work in progress.” He smiled ruefully.
“If it were up to me, peanut, I’d never let you out of the house, but I don’t think that’s going to work long term. ”
She started to protest, but he held up a hand.
“Wait. I’m getting there. I love you, and I will always love you no matter if you live close by or across the country.
Or across the world, although I hope you don’t.
But anyway, you’re old enough to start making some of your own decisions.
So what I’m trying to say in my long-winded, boring way is that you can go. ”
Her eyes flew open. “To Colorado? For the summer?”
“A month. Your mom and I talked about it. I know she’s trying and wants more time with you.
And I’m okay with it.” At least it wasn’t the whole summer; they’d compromised on a month.
And Sophie did seem to be making an effort.
She’d been better about returning Lilah’s calls and sometimes even called herself.
“For real?” Lilah’s smile was huge.
He nodded, not trusting his voice. Then, “I’ll miss you like crazy. I’m not going to lie. It’s going to be real quiet around here for a whole month. But I think you should go. I want you to go.”
“Thank you!” Lilah threw herself into his arms. Her hair smelled like strawberry shampoo, and part of him wished she were still four and he could keep her this way, but another part loved the young woman she was becoming. Strong and resourceful and too goddamn opinionated.
It had been a tough couple of weeks coming to this decision.
Back and forth a dozen times. He’d wanted more than anything to talk to Cassie about it, but every time he went to call her, he had so much else he needed to say.
Like, I’ve been a jerk. He thought of her a million times a day.
What she was doing, if she missed him. But all the old alarm bells about honesty and trust kept going off, and he couldn’t go down that road again.
Not after Sophie.
But Cassie wasn’t Sophie. She was just trying to hold it all together, doing the best she could for her dad. It had taken him a long time to see that through his haze of hurt and anger. He’d finally worked up the nerve to call, but she hadn’t called back. He could hardly blame her.
He kissed the top of Lilah’s head. “You’ll have a great time with your mom. Just promise you’ll come back, okay? Charlie won’t know what to do without you.”
“I promise. You and Charlie are my number one, you know that.”
“Who, me or Charlie?”
“Oh Dad.” She rolled her eyes. “Hey look.” She opened her phone. “Mom’s been feeding this feral cat. It waits on the deck for food.” She showed him a picture of a mangy gray cat peering in the sliding door. “Mom thinks it might have babies somewhere.”
“Hmm, it might. If you’re lucky, maybe she’ll bring them by.”
“Ooh, you think?” Lilah looked enchanted. “Would a kitten be tame enough if you got it young? I mean, you’d have to take it to the vet and everything, right?”
“You sure would.” He smiled to himself. Better Sophie than him saying no to a feral kitten. He could just picture that scene. “So if you want to go, there’s a flight out of JFK Saturday morning, and there’s still a few seats left. It’s eight a.m. so we’d have to leave early.”
She bolted up. “This Saturday? That’s like two days from now!”
“Yup.” He tousled her hair as he stood. “Better start packing. One suitcase please.”
. . .
Glenn’s stomach clotted with unhappiness as he swung into the Linden’s driveway and spotted the beekeeper.
It appeared Cassie had gone and hired someone else.
Three weeks and she’d already replaced him.
Not that he was here about the bees, but it stung just the same that she’d moved on so quickly.
Like he’d never existed. He peered out the window.
What the hell was the guy doing, standing on a ladder for Christ’s sake, trying to lift out a frame.
Who did that? It irked him that she’d gone and hired some amateur.
He idled the truck, debating whether to stay or go.
He’d come straight from dropping Lilah at the airport, had been upbeat and positive even though it killed him.
Maybe he should have given himself some time before coming over, but he’d waited too long already.
He owed Cassie an apology but she’d clearly moved on, the beekeeping part anyway.
His gut churned miserably. He’d been a fool, tied up in knots over the whole Weber thing when it really didn’t matter.
Oh crap. Beekeeper 2.0 had noticed him. Glenn gave a half-hearted wave, but the guy didn’t wave back.
Just climbed off his ladder and started across the field.
With a deep sigh Glenn killed the engine and got out of the truck, the gravel crunching in a familiar way.
He didn’t want to deal with this new guy; he just wanted to find Cassie and see if he could make things right.
He squinted into the sun. The dude was small, something familiar about him.
That purposeful walk. He knew that walk.
Cassie! Clomping toward him in her dad’s bee suit. His heart kicked into gear as he legged across the grass to meet her. She probably thought he was being a dick, waiting for her to come to him. This was so not how he wanted things to go.
She shrugged out of her veil when she got close. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he said cautiously. “How are you?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Carrying on.”
“Sorry I haven’t been by. It’s…uh…it’s been…
” He’d rehearsed what he was going to say on the ride from the airport, trying to get it right.
Maybe if he explained how her keeping quiet about Weber had dredged up all the old stuff about Sophie, maybe she’d understand.
But his heart was pounding, and he couldn’t grab hold of his thoughts.
Everything he’d worked out on the way over had flown out of his head.
“I um…wanted to apologize,” he finally managed.
She looked at him. “I must have called you twenty times, and you never called back.”
He shifted from one foot to the other. “I did call the other day.”
“After almost three weeks.” Her face was flushed from the heat, and wisps of hair had gotten loose from her ponytail. Her dad’s bee suit engulfed her. She was beautiful.
“I meant to call sooner. I’m sorry. For all of it—the way I reacted and then going AWOL. But you weren’t exactly open either.” His heart was a tight fist in his chest. They’d both messed up, but he’d messed up big by walking away. “I should have called. It just got hard.”
“I called you so many times. It was like you fell off a cliff.” She’d left a hive open, and bees were drifting around. “I need to close that up,” she said. “Want to walk back with me?”
They fell into step, and he waited with a faltering heart for her to speak. For the first time it felt awkward between them. A distance he didn’t know how to bridge.
“I’m sorry too,” she said finally. “I should have just come out with it about selling to Weber. I guess deep down it felt wrong, and I didn’t want to hear about it. I wasn’t honest and that was wrong.”
“Yes, it was.” He’d hoped for her apology, but now it almost seemed beside the point. She’d withheld and he’d withdrawn. He didn’t know who was at fault anymore; it just felt miserable.
A frame with brood was propped against the open hive. “I wouldn’t have left it open,” she said, “but I saw your truck.”
“I’ll close it up for you.” Glenn went to pick up the frame, but she stepped past him.
“No need, I’ve got my trusty ladder.” She gave him a slightly embarrassed smile.
“I could tell you didn’t know it was me.
” She climbed onto the stool and slotted the frame back into the box.
He had to admit the stool made sense, gave her a better angle.
But there weren’t nearly as many bees as there should have been.
The colony looked depleted. “What’s going on with the mites? ” he said.
“The mites are the least of the problem. We got invaded by wasps.”
“Oh Christ.” He came closer for a look. “You put in entrance reducers. That was smart. Did your dad think of it?”
“I figured it out.”
“You did? Good for you.” He looked at her, impressed. “So have the wasps been back?”
“Yeah, but not as many are getting in. I haven’t seen a big invasion like that one day. They killed a lot of bees though.”
“May I?” When she nodded he lifted the cover off the hive he knew to be the weakest. Bees were crawling around on top, a few regarding him suspiciously.
He waited until they settled before extracting a frame.
“Looks like they got to the brood.” He held it up for her to see.
“It’s all gouged out here. But they didn’t get it all, at least not on this one.
” He slipped the frame back in. The wasps had undoubtedly done more damage, but he didn’t want to slip into beekeeper mode.
He could sense her pulling away. The bees could wait.
He swallowed. “I didn’t have any right to lay all that shit on you about selling the house. It’s your family, and you have to do what you think is right. I get it. It wasn’t my business in the first place. It felt dishonest, that’s all. That you didn’t tell me.”
“I kept trying to find a time. That’s a bad excuse, I know.
But the longer I waited, the more I didn’t know how to say it.
I was afraid you’d think less of me.” She lifted her eyes to his.
“I’ll just say this—I didn’t want to lose you, and I was afraid I might.
I thought maybe we had a chance. I hoped we did. You have no idea how much.”
It hit him like a two second delay. “You thought we had a chance?” he said, slightly stunned. “Do you ah…think we still might?” His heart, unruly from the moment he’d set eyes on her, took off at a gallop. She’d wanted to make it work.
She looked toward the woods, where a pair of squirrels tag teamed up a white pine.
“If we’d had this conversation a couple of weeks ago, I might have said yes, but it’s been a long, crummy three weeks, Glenn, and I’ve done a lot of thinking.
You skipped out when things got hard. I tried so many times to talk to you, and you couldn’t or wouldn’t pick up the phone.
You shut me out. What kind of relationship is that? ”
He closed his eyes briefly. She was right, of course. “It hit a nerve the way you didn’t tell me. Like with Sophie, how I never knew what she was thinking. I just reacted. It’s not the same, I get that, but I guess I needed time to process.”
“You could have processed with me,” she said softly.
“I know. And if you give me another chance, I promise I’ll bombard you with feelings.”
She let go a real smile for the first time, and he allowed himself a glimmer of hope.
Maybe it wasn’t too late. But when she finally spoke, her face was settled in a way he understood.
“I’m at a place now where I’m okay. I can’t be on an emotional roller coaster.
I just can’t do it. And we both have a lot on our plates.
You have Lilah, and I’ve got my dad and Andrew.
Maybe at some point, but I can’t do this now. ”
At some point. That meant never. She was slipping away; this was how it happened. Mistakes, miscommunication. Him being an idiot. His heart felt like it had a slow leak. She’d wanted him, and he’d been too stupid and stubborn to get out of his own way.
“By the way, after all this we’re not even selling to Weber.”
“What?” He wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “You’re not?”
“I found a way around it. We listed with an agent in town. She’s going to find a buyer for the house and the property, all of it. Someone who won’t tear it down.” She began gathering up the bee stuff—the smoker and her dad’s hive tool. She looked like a beekeeper.
He wanted to touch her—her hair, her face.
If only he could touch her they might find a way.
But she was out of reach. “I don’t even care about all that.
They can put up fifty houses here, and yes, it would suck.
But not as much as not having you in my life.
I want to make it work, Cassie. Even if you’re in New York, it’s not that far.
I’ll do whatever it takes. I don’t want to give up. ”
She looked at him for a long moment, and he thought maybe something had shifted, that maybe he still had a chance. But then she said, “Right now, I need to find a place for my dad and start cleaning out the house. I can’t think about anything else. I don’t have the energy for it.”
“So that’s it?” he said dismally.
“It’s too much up and down. I had a marriage where he pulled away. I can’t deal with that again.”
He looked at the hives, where bees were coming and going. Doing the best they could. “What about the bees?”
She shrugged tiredly. “I’ll do what I can as long as we’re here. If they make it, I’ll find someplace for them.”
He was about to say he’d go back to being a beekeeper again for however long she needed him.
That he didn’t mind. But he did mind. He couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t stomach the thought of coming over here and not seeing her or watching her pack up the house and move on.
That would be torture. Worse than never meeting her at all.
“I’m sorry you feel this way,” he said quietly.
Her eyes shone with tears. “I’m sorry too.”
There was nothing left to say so they hiked back across the field in silence, Cassie carrying the gear.
A rabbit startled in front of them, dashing off a few yards, its nose quivering, then sat fatly on the grass, oblivious to the fact it was still in plain sight.