by Meredith May
If only Mom would say something. I wanted her to cry, or shout, or throw something to send me a signal that things were still the same. But she was eerily quiet, and that was terrifying. At least with an outburst, I could tell what was on her mind. Silence was not her style, so that meant something serious was happening. Dread dripped in the back of my throat, an acrid taste like burned walnuts.
I tried to keep a vigil over her, but eventually the engine hum inside the cabin lulled me to sleep. I dreamed there was a small reservoir in the floor of the plane near my feet, with a long lever protruding from it. I unfastened Matthew’s seat belt and shoved him into the hole and pulled the lever. Hissing steam rose, and when I released my grip, Matthew had turned into a blue glass totem, about the size of a soda can. He was trapped in the glass, and I could hear him screaming to be let out. I shoved him into my pocket, promising him that I would turn him back into a boy, but for now, this was the best way to keep him safe until we arrived at Granny and Grandpa’s house.
My intuition was telling me that I needed to protect my little brother. During the flight, I could sense that Mom was receding from us. I felt a slipping away that I couldn’t put words to, a change as subtle as growing taller that couldn’t be perceived until it had already happened. By the time we landed, her eyes were vacant and looked right through me. Somewhere thirty thousand feet up over Middle America, she had relinquished parenthood.
2
Honey Bus
Next Day—1975
Granny was waiting for us at the Monterey Peninsula Airport, standing with arms crossed in a wool dress and a crisp, high-collared blouse with puffy sleeves. Her tawny bouffant was salon-sculpted into frozen waves, and protected by a clear plastic headscarf tied under her chin to shield her hairdo from the elements. She was an exclamation point of perfect posture, jutting above the glut of less-mannered travelers flagrantly kissing their relatives in public. She scrutinized our approach through cat-eye glasses, lips pursed in a thin line. When Mom saw her, she let out a wounded cry, and reached for a hug just as Granny pulled out a wadded hanky from her sleeve cuff and held it out to Mom to avoid an embarrassing scene. Mom took it and just stood there, unsure of what to do. Granny observed manners, and one did not blubber in public.
“Let’s have a seat,” Granny whispered, grabbing Mom’s elbow and guiding her to the row of hard plastic chairs. Mom blew her nose and gulped back sobs as Granny made soft clucking noises and rubbed her back. I stood there awkwardly, looking while at the same time trying not to look. Granny handed Matthew and me two quarters from her coin purse and pointed to a row of chairs with small black-and-white televisions mounted on the armrests. Delighted, we ran to the chairs to watch a TV show while Mom and Granny had a Very Important Conversation. Matthew and I squeezed together in one of the chairs, dropped the quarter in and spun the dial until we landed on a cartoon.
When Granny and Mom finally stood up to go, we were the last people left in the boarding area. Granny came over, and I instinctively stopped slouching. “Your mother is just tired,” she said, leaning down to kiss my cheek. She smelled like lavender soap.
Matthew and I rode in the wayback of Granny’s mustard-yellow station wagon, far enough from Granny and Mom so we couldn’t hear what they were saying. I looked out the back window to inspect California sliding past. It was February, but oddly there wasn’t any snow. We drove over rolling brown hills with horse ranches and up a steep grade with hairpin turns, pushing the car higher and higher. The car groaned with effort, and my stomach dropped when I realized that we were on top of a ring of mountains, like we were driving on the edge of a gargantuan bowl. Beneath us, the earth fell away in deep folds and grooves all the way to the valley below, and an idea came to me that we must be driving over the dinosaurs, whose bodies had turned into mountains after they’d died.
I also noticed that the trees in California were different—solitary, massive oaks with outstretched octopus arms twisting just a few feet above the ground, nothing at all like the fiery maples or crowded forests of skinny birch trees back home. When we finally started to descend, I could see all of Carmel Valley below us, a vast green basin with a silver river snaking along one side of it. My ears popped on the way down until we reached the bottom of the bowl, the mountains now a towering fortress around us. Carmel Valley felt like a secret garden in one of my fairy tales, sealed off from the rest of the universe. It was warmer here, and the sun seemed to slow everything down: the ambling pickup trucks, the sleepy crows, the unhurried river.
We drove by a community park and public swimming pool, then made a right turn onto Via Contenta and passed an elementary school with tennis courts. The rest of the residential street was lined with one-story ranch homes separated by juniper hedges and oak trees for privacy. Granny slowed in front of a volunteer fire station where some men were washing red engines out front, passed a small cul-de-sac with a handful of identical wood-shingled bungalows, and then reached her destination—a small red home perched in the middle of an acre of land, bordered on four sides by overgrown trees.
Granny skipped her front gravel driveway and instead took the back way to the house, turning onto a short dirt lane that ran along her fence and was canopied by a row of mammoth walnut trees with branches reaching all the way to the ground, engulfing us in a tunnel of green leaves. Walnut shells popped under our tires as we followed the curving drive to the backyard. She parked next to a clothesline, where her square-dancing petticoats were flapping in the breeze.
Granny took great pride in living on one of the largest lots on her street, and she was quick to remind anyone who forgot that she was among the first residents of Carmel Valley Village, arriving in 1931 from Pennsylvania with her mother when she was eight. They’d driven across the country in a convertible Nash Coupe after Granny’s father had unexpectedly died of a heart attack, because her mother wanted to escape the tragedy in a warmer place with good swimming. This history, Granny believed, conferred on her a pedigree that allowed her to complain about the influx of newcomers over the next forty years. However, she was comforted that the oak, walnut and eucalyptus trees demarcating her property had grown to screen the neighbors from view. And the neighbors in turn were spared the sight of Grandpa’s accumulating junk heaps that now pervaded the king-size lot.
I stepped out of the car and saw several haystack-size piles of tree trimmings, at least three toolsheds, mounds of gravel and bricks, two rusting military jeeps, a flatbed trailer, a backhoe and two beaten-down pickups. A trellis of grapevines led in a sloping line from the laundry to the back fence, where there was a small city of stacking beehives resting on cinder blocks, each one four and five wooden boxes high. From this far away, it looked like a mini-metropolis of white filing cabinets.
Something caught my eye through the billowing laundry. I walked through the rainbow of swirling skirts to get closer, and found myself standing before a faded green military bus. Rain had chewed away a ring of rust holes around the roof, leaving brown streaks trailing down its sides. Weeds choked the tires, its wraparound front windshield was cracked and cloudy, and a massive rhubarb bush sprouted from under the front bumper. It seemed to have driven right out of World War II and wheezed to a stop right by Grandpa’s vegetable garden, from an era when vehicles were all fat curves instead of sleek edges, making the bus look more animal than machine. The rounded hood was sculpted like the snout of a lion, with vent holes for nostrils and globe headlight eyes that stared back at me. Below its nose was a row of grinning grille teeth, and under that, a dented metal bumper that looked an awful lot like a lower lip. In peeling white paint above the windshield, it read U.S. ARMY 20930527. Captivated by the incongruity of it, I felt compelled to investigate.
Kicking a path through waist-high weeds, I tried to see inside but the windows were too high. I circled to the back of the bus, and near the tailpipe I found a crooked stack of wooden pallets that improvised as stairs leading to a narro
w door. I scrambled up, the makeshift staircase wobbling beneath me, and pressed my nose to the filmy glass.
Inside, all the seats were gone, and in their place was some sort of factory of whirligigs, crankshaft gears and pipes. A metal basin about the size of a hot tub rested on the floor, and contained a hefty flywheel powered by pulleys as large as manhole covers. Behind the driver’s seat were two massive steel barrels with cheesecloth stretched across their open tops. An overhead network of galvanized steel pipes was suspended from the ceiling with fishing lines.
The equipment ran the length of one wall, and on the other side Grandpa had stacked a bunch of wooden boxes, each about six inches tall and two feet wide, and painted white. Each rectangular box, taken straight from his hives, was open on the top and bottom and contained ten removable wood-framed sheets of wax honeycomb. The frames hung in neat rows, supported by notches inside the box. I would later learn from Grandpa that these were the “honey supers,” the removable top-tier boxes of a modular beehive where the bees stored nectar in the wax honeycomb and thickened it into honey by fanning their wings. The supers rested atop the larger brood boxes at the base of the hive where the queen lays her eggs.
There must have been three dozen boxes of honeycomb inside the bus. Glistening honey trickled down the stacks, collecting in shiny pools on the black rubber floor.
I could see glass jars on the dashboard that had turned purple in the sun, and sunflower-yellow bricks of beeswax that Grandpa had made by melting wax honeycomb and straining it through pantyhose into bread pans to harden. Electrical cords snaked everywhere, and construction lights dangled from the ceiling handrails. I cupped my hands over my eyes to shield the glare, and from out of the shadows someone inside pressed their nose to mine. I startled and nearly fell backward, just as Grandpa popped out the back door.
“Boo!” he said.
Bees buzzed around his head, and he slammed the door quickly to keep them from getting inside the bus. He was wearing threadbare Levi’s a couple inches too short and no shirt. He had Einstein hair sticking out every which way, as if electricity had just zapped through it, and a round face tanned to a chestnut color that settled into an expression of bemusement with life, as if he was forever chuckling at a private joke. In one hand he held a can with smoke pouring out of a spout on top. He yanked a tuft of green grass out of the ground, jammed it into the spout to stifle the flame and set his bee smoker on a pile of bricks. Then he dropped down on one knee and opened his arms wide, signaling me to fall into them.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said, squeezing me tight.
I peeled my arms from Grandpa’s neck and pointed at the bus.
“Can I go in?”
His workshop held a Willy Wonka–like spell over me. He’d built it himself, out of hand-me-down beekeeping equipment and spare plumbing parts, and powered it with a gas-powered motor taken from a lawn mower. When he bottled honey inside during the hottest days of summer, the whole bus rumbled as if it were about to drive off, and the indoor temperature shot above one hundred. Nothing in his secret workshop was official, or safety-checked, and the sweltering, sticky danger of it all made entry that much more irresistible. It seemed like magic to me that Grandpa brought honey supers inside, and emerged hours later with jars of golden honey that tasted like sunlight. Grandpa had the power to harness nature, like Zeus, and I wanted him to teach me how.
Grandpa stood up and blew his nose into a grease-stained rag, then shoved it in his back pocket.
“My honey bus? It’s not a place for little kids,” he said. “Maybe when you’re fifty, like me.” The bus was too hot and dangerous inside, he said. I could lose a finger.
Grandpa reached his long arm to the roof of the bus, where he’d stashed a piece of rebar that was bent at a right angle. He inserted one end of the rod into a hole where the back door handle used to be, and twisted to lock the bus. Then he put the homemade key back on top of the bus, out of my reach.
“Franklin, would you come get the suitcase!” Granny called out, in a way that sounded more like an order than a question. Granny had honed her leadership skills with decades of practice keeping elementary schoolchildren in line. I was a little afraid of her, and always tried to be on good behavior because her presence inherently demanded it. Not only of me, but of everyone in her orbit. Grandpa’s ears perked at the sound of her voice.
I followed Grandpa to the station wagon. He fetched our one shared suitcase from the back and we walked to the front door, trailed by a handful of bees attracted to the honey stuck to Grandpa’s boots.
My grandparents lived in a tiny red house with a flat, white gravel roof that looked like year-round snow. Grandpa said it turned away the sun and was cheaper than air-conditioning. The house had two bedrooms, and a kitchen wrapped by an L-shaped room with redwood paneling that served as both the living and dining room. A large brick fireplace that took up half of one wall was the main source of heat. Next to it was a windup grandfather clock, and on the opposite side of the house, floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Santa Lucia Mountains, which formed a natural barrier between our house and Big Sur on the other side. The kitchen was painted baby blue and was home to Grandpa’s black dachshund, Rita, who slept under the stool next to the washing machine. There was one bathroom, decorated with brown-and-silver-striped wallpaper, and a low-flow showerhead that misted weakly.
Granny led us to the spare bedroom that used to be Mom’s when she was a girl. It had since been painted a cantaloupe color. I stepped inside and immediately saw my world shrink: Matthew would sleep in a cot in the corner, and I would share the double bed with Mom. We would put our clothes into a Victorian marble-topped vanity with two lavender-scented drawers. My room in Rhode Island suddenly seemed like a castle in comparison to this small box, so crowded by beds there was no space to play.
Mom immediately closed the curtains to the sun, sending a shadow over the walls. Granny steered Matthew and me back into the hallway.
“Your mother needs some peace and quiet,” she whispered. “Go on and play outside.”
Granny had a voice that never suggested, but always instructed. We immediately understood the first unspoken rule of our new home—Granny was in charge. She would be the one to set our daily routine, plan the meals and make decisions for Mom, Grandpa, us.
Mom didn’t join us for dinner that night, so Granny put a bowl of tomato soup and toast on a tray for her instead. She set a crystal vase with a rose next to the bowl, like hotel service.
“Someone get the door,” Granny said, standing before Mom’s bedroom.
I twisted the doorknob and pushed, sending a wedge of yellow light into the darkened room, and a plume of cigarette smoke billowed out. The air was so thick I could feel it pour into my lungs as I inhaled. I took a step back and let Granny go in first. She gently approached the bed, where Mom was curled in a fetal position, crying softly. A glass ashtray the color of amber rested on the headboard, filled with a cone of ash.
“Sally?”
Mom moaned by way of answer.
“You should eat something.”
Mom uncurled herself and sat up. She winced and squeezed her temples.
“Migraine,” she whispered. Her voice was so thin, it sounded like it might tear. Granny flicked on the light, and I could see Mom’s face was flushed and her eyes were puffy.
“Tylenol?” Granny offered, fishing the plastic bottle out of her pocket and rattling it.
Mom extended her arm, and Granny dropped two pills in her palm. Granny held out a water glass and Mom gulped twice, handed it back, then flopped back down into the pillows.
“The light,” she said.
I reached up and turned it back off.
Mom seemed so weak, like she couldn’t even hold her head up. I thought of that time I found a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. It was pink, and I could see the blue of its bulging eyes tha
t had yet to open. The poor thing’s head lolled to the side when I tried to pick it up.
“I’ll just leave this here,” Granny said, setting the tray at the foot of the bed. Mom waved it away. Granny stood over the bed for a few seconds, waiting for Mom to change her mind. She bent down and adjusted the pillows to make Mom more comfortable, then Mom closed her eyes again and turned away from us. Granny picked up the tray and we shuffled out.
That first night Matthew slept in his new cot, while I crawled into the big bed where Mom was burrowed into the middle, the sheets tightly wound around her like a burrito. I carefully tugged on the sheet, trying not to wake her. She mumbled in her sleep and half-heartedly tugged back, then scooted aside to make room for me. She sniffled and fell into a light snore.
I moved to the edge of the mattress, as far as I could possibly be from Mom without falling out of the bed. I faced the window, which ran the length of the wall, tracing the moonlight that leaked in around the perimeter of the curtains with my finger. I didn’t want our bodies to touch, as if her tears were contagious.
I felt twitchy and sleep wouldn’t come. I wondered what Dad was doing at that moment, if he was walking through the empty rooms of our house, changing his mind and deciding to come to California after all. I hoped that whatever had just happened to our family was temporary, but I didn’t understand what had broken, so I couldn’t imagine how to fix it. I had a new uneasiness in the pit of my stomach because I now knew the injustice of random bad luck, that it was possible to have a family one day and lose it the next. I wanted to know why I was being singled out for punishment, and tried to retrace my steps to pinpoint what I had done wrong to have my life upended this way. It was baffling, but I had the sense that going forward, I had to choose my words, and my steps, more carefully, so I could do my part to comfort my mother and slowly, craftily, coax her happiness back. I had to be good, and patient, and maybe my luck would turn around.