The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

kind of life could he have? Could he take care of himself? Could he get a job? Go to college someday? These questions had arisen when his life exploded a year ago, and no clear answers had yet emerged. Jake avoided talking about the specifics of his circumstance with his mother, but he knew she was just as aware of them as he was.

“Look, Mom. You’re awesome, but I’m still . . . I’m stuck in this town. I need to figure things out. And living with Dad really wasn’t helping. At all.”

She wiped her eyes and nodded. She didn’t even try to defend Ed, which was a relief. Jake hated it when she said his father didn’t mean the things he said and that he really loved Jake. Blah, blah, blah. Anger flared in his belly, thinking of that red, jeering face. He clenched his fists on the table.

“He’s such an asshole, Mom!”

Tansy shook her head, reached into her purse, and took out a cough drop. Jake watched her unwrap it, put it in her mouth, and fold the paper into a small square that she tucked into her purse. In this way she composed herself and donned the serene face she wore whether she was praying or watching her meathead husband shout at the TV or something worse. Jake had first seen that look when Ed threw his dinner plate at the wall and stormed out of the house. His mom swept up the mess and made macaroni and cheese for ten-year-old Jake, humming “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace.”

Now she tried to smile.

“You’re a smart boy, Jacob. You’re going to make a good life for yourself. If you want to stay with Mrs. Holtzman for now, that’s fine. She seems like a good Christian woman, and we are grateful for her kindness.”

Jake smothered a smile as he recalled Alice swearing a blue streak when she had flooded the tractor engine the day before.

His mom squeezed his hand again. “I will always help you, honey. And I will pray for you every day.”

She hugged him and made him promise to call her at least once a week. He watched her drive away and felt a little sad. Sweet Mom.

When he dug through the duffel bag later, he found his sketchbook among the neatly folded jeans, shirts, socks, and underwear. He was startled to realize he hadn’t drawn anything since before the accident. He flipped the book open, and images jumped out like scenes from someone else’s life. Noah riding an ollie at the skatepark and Noah with his trombone. There was one of the cheerleaders in a lineup behind the jazz band at a football game, their faces blurred. There was a group of kids in the bleachers, and one girl with blue hair and braces was making the others laugh.

He turned the page, and his heart somersaulted. Cheney’s sleek body leaping off the dock at Lost Lake. Cheney with his face out the car window, smiling into the wind. Cheney asleep at the end of Jake’s bed, his great monster head resting on his paws, looking somehow dainty. It hurt to remember, and Jake shut the sketchbook.

He picked up an envelope with “Jacob” written on the front. Inside were ten $20 bills and a couple of prayer cards—one of the Virgin Mary Queen Mother and one of St. Giles. His mother had jotted a note on the back of that one: “Son of an Athenian, and a hermit, Giles is the patron saint of the disabled.” Jake laughed. Only Mom. Under the cards was another piece of paper. It was an official form from the state of Oregon. His mom had filled it out, removing herself and Ed as his guardians. As a fully emancipated adult, Jake would now receive all disability checks directly, the form read. She’d filled out the change-of-address section as Alice’s and stuck a stamp on the envelope for him. His monthly disability check was paper-clipped to it, signed over in her perfect script.

Jake shook his head. “Wow! Way to go, Mom.”

He underestimated her. The flowery dresses, carefully curled hair, and polite Christian demeanor concealed a woman of action. Most of the time, she kept the peace and sailed around her brooding husband. She had her limits, though. Jake remembered the time she grew tired of asking Ed to pick up his empty beer cans from the living room in the evening. One day when he was at work, she gathered them in a trash bag and put them on the floor next to the couch with a pillow and a blanket and went to bed early. Ed came home to a dark house, no dinner, and a locked bedroom door. They never spoke of it, but after that his cans went into the recycling.

Jake’s stomach dropped when he thought of what would happen when his father noticed the check was missing from the joint bank account. Jake had heard them arguing about it a couple of weeks after he’d returned home from the rehab center in Portland.

“Jacob needs to be saving for his future, Edward.” His mom’s voice came through the thin wall of his room. Ed said something he couldn’t hear.

“That is not true, Edward,” his mom said.

Jake cracked the door.

“Boy ain’t going nowhere. Always been lazy. Sure as hell not giving him any more of a free ride than he’s already getting.”

Jake clenched his jaw, remembering. Right, Ed. Just joyriding over here in my wheelchair. Still, he hoped his mother wouldn’t suffer the brunt of that.

Now he listened again to the golden reverberation of the hive in front of him. He itched to get closer and see the intricate interior life. He thought about Harry, and his belly roiled with jealousy. The guy didn’t even seem interested in the bees. Jake already knew so much from what he’d read. But the damn hives were too tall, and Jake knew he couldn’t do the work Alice needed.

He looked at Hive No. 6, which