A Recipe for Bees by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

Author:Gail Anderson-Dargatz [Anderson-Dargatz, Gail]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Contemporary
ISBN: 0676972411
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 1998-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Six

WHEN AUGUSTA FOUND she was pregnant she was, in turns, thrilled and terrified. She longed for a baby of her own, but she knew the child couldn’t be Karl’s. In the three weeks it took to find the courage to tell Karl, she brooded over the day Helen had told them she was pregnant. It had been a Sunday; there had been roast beef, scalloped potatoes, a layered jelly mould for dessert. As Harry Jacob was now back at the reserve, her mother took more time on their meals. “I’m having a baby,” she said.

Manny stopped eating, his fork in mid-air. “A baby? We can’t be having a baby.”

“Well, we are.”

Augusta wondered why Helen chose to tell Manny then, with her sitting right there with them. Shouldn’t a wife tell her husband about a pregnancy first, privately, before telling the children? She felt as she did when, at night, she heard the rhythmic thumping of her parents’ bed legs against the uneven floor overhead; she was listening in on something that shouldn’t be overheard.

“We’re too old for chasing around with babies,” said Manny.

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now, is there?”

“Isn’t there some woman thing you can do?”

“A woman thing?”

“To stop it?”

Helen stared at Manny until he went red. He pushed his plate away from him.

“That’s not going to do us any good. Here it is. We’ve got to accept it.”

Manny sat back and crossed his arms. His nostrils flared as he breathed in. “It’s mine, is it?”

“Whose else would it be?”

“Could anything go wrong?” said Augusta. “Could it make you sick?”

“Sick? Like what?”

“Like what I saw. Out in the rosemary.”

“Enough with that,” said Manny.

“Nothing’s going to go wrong,” said Helen.

“I don’t mind there being a baby,” said Augusta. “I’d like a sister.”

“That’s good, dear. You’ll be a help.”

Manny pushed back his chair, took down a gun from the rack, and stomped outside. “Go see what your father’s doing,” said Helen. “I want a bit of time in the house to myself.”

Manny was walking the sorrel mare from the stall as Augusta reached the barn. Along with the gun he carried the bullwhip he used in training the horses. “What’re you doing?” Augusta said.

“Taking her for a walk.”

“Can I come?”

“You may not want to.”

Augusta trailed behind Manny anyway, stumbling over wheat stubble, watching the rear of the sorrel mare sway and her tail flick at the flies. She licked her teeth, tasting the jelly dessert, thinking of Helen’s jar of King George one-cent pieces she had counted and admired, once again, after church that morning. She thought of the flat, tart taste of those pennies. She expected nothing as she followed Manny and the mare to the benchland.

She stopped following when they reached the stubble of burnt fallen trees at the edge of the field several yards away from the old homesteaders’ well. She knew now. Manny lifted the split boards away from the hole of the well and threw them to the side. “Why do you have to kill her?”

“She’s too wild.

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