The Honey Bus. Meredith May
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 that 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