Dad takes a calming breath, then changes the subject. “Papá, we drove past the Seville on our way down. They’re getting the grounds ready for summer.” Discuss upcoming changes with a positive outlook.
“Seville?” Serge twists his wrinkles into a confused face.
“Remember?” Dad says. “The Seville? The new home I — we — found for you?”
Serge reacts to the news with as much enthusiasm as Alta would give a sheep. “I’m staying here.”
Dad shreds his napkin into bits. “We decided this was the right choice.”
“No. You decided,” Serge says, and he’s right. Earlier this year, when Dad first learned that his dad was sick, Serge wouldn’t agree to move away from the ranch. Doctors told him he needed to be somewhere safer, somewhere closer to a hospital, but they couldn’t convince him. “He won’t even discuss it,” Dad had told my mom while tugging his hair in frustration. “He just keeps shouting, ‘This is where my roots are!’ ”
“So what does that mean?” Mom had wondered.
Dad had sighed. “It means I have to hire a lawyer.” And he did. He hired a lawyer to make Serge move — for his own good, Dad kept on saying.
“I’m not going to some raisin ranch,” Serge says now. “You can’t make me.”
“Papá.” Dad groans, and I see a flash of what he must have been like as a teenager, with a flawlessly executed roll of the eyes. “It’s not a raisin ranch, it’s … it’s a private residence. Practically a hotel.”
“Too expensive,” Serge says.
“It’s not, remember? We looked at the numbers? It’s completely doable,” Dad says. “There’s round-the-clock medical staff, jetted tubs, a four-star chef. It’s the best place in New Mexico.” Dad’s guilt is bright as a sunburn. Serge would never care about Jacuzzi tubs or gourmet food; Dad picked the swanky Seville to feel better about putting his dad away against his will.
“Then move in yourself.” The oxygen shoots through Serge’s tube and squeaks with rage.
“The ranch is too far for hospice to drive. You need hands-on care. The dementia is just going to get worse.”
“I’m not leaving the ranch, Raúl,” Serge says. “Not when the bees are coming.”
“Beeee, beeee,” Lu chants.
My heart pulses. Bees.
Dad rubs his temples. “What are you talking about? Bees, Papá?”
“Sí, sí, the bees! They’re coming; they’re bringing the rain.”
“There are no bees here anymore. It’s too dry for them, you know that.”
“No, the bees are coming! Caro-leeen-a saw one!” Serge points a chalky-yellow fingernail at me.
“I —” I start, then realize everyone’s staring. Our number-one goal this summer: don’t do anything to upset Serge.
“Um,” I barely whisper, “it was just a fly.”
My lie is painful to deliver: Serge’s hope melts out of him, his mouth goes slack, and his eyes become blurry, icy-blue watercolor versions of themselves. “No bees?”
“No,” I say. “No bees.” I wish I could dive headfirst into my bowl.
“The Seville’s the best care center in the state,” Dad says. “It’ll be a vacation after the ranch. You can relax for once in your life.”
“We’ll be able to see you more often,” Mom adds, ignoring the fiery look Dad gives her.
Serge’s hand reaches out, a clammy, pasty claw. “Water, please.”
I pass him a glass, which he drains. “Bones are so dry,” he says. “Drought dries everything to dust.”
Dad clears his throat. “So this week, we’ve got to meet with the real estate agent.”
“Real estate agent?” Serge repeats.
“We decided,” Dad says carefully, “that it’s time to pass the ranch on. This way, everything at the Seville will be paid for.”
“You were born on this land,” Serge says. “Raised on this land. Your mother —”
“I know.” Dad’s voice cooks hotter and hotter. “But it hasn’t been properly maintained. When we sell it, somebody else can clean it up, get it up to speed with the twenty-first century. It will have a future — another family to look after it. Won’t that be great?”
“This land belongs to my family, Raúl. To your family. Tus raíces significan nada para ti.” Your roots mean nothing to you, Serge says. “You’ll pass it on over my dead body!”
“That’s what I’m trying to avoid!”
Dad storms out of the kitchen. Seconds later the TV volume cranks up.
Serge pushes away from the table slowly, trembling as he stands. Mom opens and closes her mouth, trying to find the right thing to say, but it doesn’t come in time, and Serge goes outside, carting his oxygen tank behind him, and parks himself on the porch.
Alta starts texting.
“Okay, guacamole monster. Time for a bath.” Mom plucks Lu from his high chair. “Will you girls get the dishes cleaned up? That means you.” She narrows her eyes at my sister.
Alta makes a big show of putting her phone away and carrying her own dishes to the sink. “I am,” she says.
“What about … ?” I say, pointing at Serge on the porch. “Should someone go talk to him?”
Mom glances at him, crumpled in his wicker chair, staring across the land at nothing. “Give him time,” she finally says.
Bzzz, bzzz. I jerk my head around. “Bee,” I whisper. But it’s Alta’s cell phone, vibrating on the countertop.
“Alta. Clean up first. Then phone.”
“Fine.” My sister, queen of the monosyllable. But as soon as Mom’s out of sight, she abandons the sink and grabs her phone.
“Hey, Mom said you have to help.” My heart thumps as I say this; I’m risking being yelled at, or pinched, or worse.
Alta’s eyes flash danger. “I won’t tell her if you won’t.” She slips out of the kitchen, her only contribution clearing her own dishes. It’s more than she usually does, anyway.
It’s not fair. Alta always manages to talk or walk her way out of work. If I tattle to Mom, Alta will spin an excuse, elaborate as lace, and get away with it. She always gets away with it.
“Chiquita?” Serge calls through the open kitchen window. “Did Inés get fed?”
I peer at the dog’s food and water. Both full. “Yes.”
“She’s a good dog,” he says.
I wash dishes like a factory worker, letting the cold suds drip down my arms. I breathe, forgetting the unfairness of the evening with every exhale; the ranch is no place to rewrite the rules of my world.
“Chiquita? Did Inés get fed?” Serge pops his head in the window this time.
I stare. “You just asked me that.”
“No, I’m asking it now.”
“Yes, she’s got food,” I say.
“And water?”
Sigh. “And water.”
“She’s a good dog.”
Loved ones with dementia may repeat the same phrases or questions, or repeat the same tasks, such as washing their hands, getting dressed, or showering. Do your best to be patient.
“I’m trying, I’m trying,” I reply to the pamphlet in my back pocket. I finish washing the last plate and declare the kitchen clean.
In the living room, Dad faces the general direction of the TV, but he looks through it, his eyes puffy, an unopened can of beer in his hand. Both he and Alta won their arguments tonight, but unlike my sister, Dad isn’t the gloating type.
I zone out for another hour, shifting my lukewarm attention between the TV and my phone. When my text conversations with my friends drop off one by one, I watch the movie. It’s in Spanish, but it’s still nice to be lost in someone else’s world, someone else’s problems.
Mom comes in. “Bedtime.”
“It’s only nine,” I say.
“Okay. Let’s play a game where I’m the mom and you’re the kid.” Mom squeezes the bridge of her nose. “Trust me, you need sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
“You mean a long summer.”
But she’s right, I need sleep. My muscles ache — I’m shattered.
“What exactly are we doing tomorrow?” I ask.
“Same things we’ll be doing every day,” Mom says. “We pack. And clean. And try to fix things that are falling apart.” She drags one hand along the hallway wall. “This ranch is so full of junk, it’ll be a miracle if we fit half of it into one moving van. A lifetime of junk. Of memories.”
“Mom?” I say, as quietly as I can without whispering. A thousand questions line up single file in my throat. Will Dad be okay? Is it going to kill him to be here with Serge for two months, or is he just being dramatic? Why are there bees here? They’re not supposed to be. And why does it seem like they’re following me? Why do I feel like the ranch is brewing something extra weird? Am I going crazy, like Serge, or is it just the heat?
I want to tell her how Serge’s eyes glow, how they are cat’s eyes, wide as a newborn’s, ringed like an ancient tree trunk. I want to tell her how lucky I feel that Lu’s alive, and talk to her about Alta, how I wish I could transform into a giant, just so I can pick Alta up and say, “You’re not the biggest, not really.” I want to tell Mom that living with Alta is like having a rattler in the house.
But what I ask is “Mom? What happened between Serge and Dad?”
Mom comes out of slow motion and studies my face. “You’ll have to ask Dad. That’s his memory to share.” She kisses my forehead. “Get some rest. See you in the morning.” Then she goes into her bedroom, and I’m in the hallway with no answers.
The door to Dad’s old bedroom is closed, so I knock.
“What?” Alta calls, instead of “Come in” or even “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” I say. She doesn’t respond.
“Mom says I have to go to bed.” Still no answer.
“Can I come in?” Nothing.
I go in.
She’s scrunched in the corner of the bed, painting her toenails purple, copying the flower pattern from some fashion magazine. She’s alternating between this, texting, and watching a teen vampire show on her phone.
“I thought the ranch didn’t have Wi-Fi,” I say.
She points to a thin black box plugged into the wall. “My dad let me take his hotspot,” she answers in a bored voice.
“Oh, right.” I wonder if my dad even knows what a hotspot is. “How should we — I mean, do you want to share the bed?” I say this cautiously. My communication has to be void of emotion, purely neutral, because if Alta’s in a mood to bully me, she’ll deny me anything I seem to want.
“Not really,” she says, and locks eyes: a dare to challenge her.
In the closet I find a sleeping bag and a Superman pillow. I unroll the makeshift bed, then lie on the floor, flat as the desert.
Above me is the tangled cord of an old Nintendo video-game console, dusty on a shelf. “Can you believe Dad grew up here?” I say.
“So?” Alta’s glued to her phone.
“I just can’t picture him here.”
“This place is awful,” Alta says. “No wonder Raúl waited until Serge was on his deathbed before dragging us out here.”
I sit up. “You think Serge is on his deathbed?”
She shrugs. “Serge makes me hope I die before I’m forty. Just so I don’t ever have to be that old.”
“It’s not his fault,” I say. “Everyone has to get old.”
“He’s like the Crypt Keeper.”
My blood warms. “Alta. He’s not that old.”
“His skin’s falling off his bones and his teeth can’t even chew,” she says.
I glare at my sister, but earlier on the porch, when I saw Serge for the first time, the same things paraded through my mind: old, decaying, one foot in the grave. The living dead.
“What about his eyes?” I say.
Alta’s unimpressed. “Old-man eyes.”
“Yeah, but …” But there’s something alive behind them. Like he has X-ray vision to your thoughts.
Bzzz. It isn’t Alta’s phone this time. Bzzz.
“Ew, get it.” Alta points at the window, where a winged insect hurls itself against the glass, trying to escape. It’s too big to be a mosquito. A fly, maybe? Some kind of evil winged ant?
I grab my sandal and crawl on the bed, ready to swat it into a stupor. It’s not an ant or a fly — it’s a bee; of course it’s a bee. Perfectly striped in black and golden yellow, buzzing along the windowpane. My throat goes dry. A bee, again.
“Kill it,” Alta commands.
“Hold on, I’m trying to let it out.” But before I can budge the window open, Alta crunches the bee with her rolled-up magazine.
“Alta!” I cry. “I was letting it out.”
“Flies will crawl in your mouth while you sleep,” she says.
“Gross, don’t say that.” The window finally opens, the dead-bee grit blowing out into the night. “And it wasn’t a fly,” I say, but Alta’s head is on her pillow, eyes closed, headphones in. Conversation, done.
I lie wide-eyed in the dark, my mind a pot of hot water about to boil over.
Alta snores, a delicate, feminine sound, like a chipmunk breathing on autumn leaves. The rest of the house is quiet.
My dreams are full of bees.
There’s a thunderstorm outside.
I wake in a cold sweat. For the record, cold sweat is way worse than hot sweat.
I crawl to the window, heart thumping against my ribs. Thunder means rain. Rain, after a hundred years of drought, I can’t believe it! Serge was right — the bees brought the rain!
But it’s not a thunderstorm, just Dad’s truck engine growling outside. I rub my eyes and reel at how ridiculous I am — did I really think it was rain? And that somehow the bees had brought it?
Going back to sleep seems as impossible as seeing a bee in a drought. I stand up and catch a glimpse of Alta, relaxed in dreamland, her face like a statue of an angel. When she’s sleeping, she looks almost nice.
My phone says it’s close to midnight. I wrap a blanket around my shoulders and walk to the porch. Serge snoozes here, in the openness of night, sitting upright in his wicker chair, a quilt tucked over his knees. Asleep, he seems frailer than ever. His skin is papery-thin, and his eyeballs move under the spiderwebs of veins on his purple eyelids.
“Carol?” Dad tinkers beneath the truck’s open hood. “Did I wake you? Sorry.”
The dirt is chilly under my bare feet. How can the desert be so scorching hot during the day, then freeze at night? “What are you even doing?” I ask Dad.
He climbs into the truck. “The pasture gate didn’t get shut. One of the sheep got out.”
I must have a glow of neediness, because Dad smiles a tired smile and waves for me to join him. “Come on, I could use another set of eyes. Mine are down to their last wattage.”
“Ever heard of sleep?” I get in the truck next to him.
He laughs. “No rest for the wicked.”
I finger-comb my rat’s-nest hair as we drive through the pasture. “So Serge really does sleep on the porch.”
“Whenever Mamá is gone, he sleeps outside.”
“But she’s been gone for twelve years,” I say, tightening the blanket around me. Twelve years of sleeping in a stiff wicker chair with the moonlight, and the jackrabbits, and the desert bats… .
“It doesn’t feel like twelve years,” Dad says. “When we pulled up to the house today, I half expected Mamá to come bounding down the porch steps, like she always did.” He smiles. “The ranch was different when she was here. Brighter. Bluer skies, and more air. She loved to travel, and whenever she was gone, and it was just Papá and me …” He goes quiet.
“I can’t believe he won’t go in his own bedroom,” I say.
“Grief does funny things to people.” Dad’s jaw keeps clenching and unclenching.
“And dementia,” I suggest. Behind us, the ranch house is illuminated by the moon, the wood warped, the windows dingy. “Dad?” I say. “Does he have to go to the Seville?”
“Where else would he go?”
My reply is tiny. “With us?”
“Live with us?” Dad nearly pops a lung with his laugh. “In our house? No. No. No.” He shivers, his whole body shaking. “Believe me, I hate that we have to move him. But it’s better that he goes to a home. For all of us.”
This is an off-limits topic, but it’s after midnight; it feels like the rules can be bent until they snap. “Dad? What happened to Grandma Rosa?”
“What do you mean?” Dad says.
“All I really know about her is that she died on my birthday,” I say. I was born at noon, and she died right before dinner.
“I’ll never forget that day,” he says. “Full of hellos and good-byes. Happiest and saddest day of my life.”
“I don’t even know how she died,” I say.
He coughs. “Cancer.”
“Cancer,” I repeat. What an ugly, scary word.
“She fought it. Fought hard. It kept leaving and coming back, leaving and coming back. In the end … Well, it took Mamá a long time to finally go. She sure was stubborn.”
“What else was she like?”
For a moment, I panic that I’ve gone too far. We’re in uncharted territory, talking about Grandma Rosa. Dad tightens his grip on the steering wheel. “She had lots of fire. Never let anything go unsaid. She was adventurous — definitely adventurous.”
“Fiery and adventurous,” I repeat. What was she doing married to Serge?
“Papá couldn’t ever get her to stay put. No one could.” Dad’s voice hardens. “She hated the ranch as much as I did.”
He parks the truck on the edge of the ridge, where the pasture ends and the desert begins. “All this openness,” he says, “and still, I always felt trapped here. There’s only one thing I love about the desert.” He switches off the headlights and points outside. “The sky, niña. Just look at the sky.”
I get out of the truck and gasp.
Golden-white stars freckle the black sky. A wisp of midnight cloud uncurls itself into hazy purple smoke, then disappears. The moon is round and bright and the color of harvested corn. All of this stretches above the miles and miles of sparse desert — a heavenly ceiling.
“Say what you want about the ranch,” Dad says, “but you sure don’t get skies like this in the city.”
Hour of the Bees Page 4