Lost in the Beehive by Michele Young-Stone

Author:Michele Young-Stone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

20

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING, my father came to my bedroom door. His light eyes were sad. There were wrinkles I hadn’t noticed. It frightened me to see him look so old. “You can always come home. You always have a home here. I just want you to know that.”

“I know. Thank you.”

My mother came in next. “You don’t have to do this. It’s not too late.” She sat on the bed, and I pulled the Bishop book from my nightstand, turning to the fish poem. She took it from my hands, scooting back on the bed. I rested my head in her lap, and she began reading. By the time she got to the end where “everything was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! And I let the fish go,” I was asleep.

Jacob and I got married on Saturday, June 19. We’d known each other for all of ten weeks. Our ceremony was small. My parents and the Babineauxs were in attendance. The chapel’s corridor was lined with matted portraits of priests and bishops, some of whom I recognized.

Father led me to Jacob, who squeezed my hand reassuringly. His dark eyes were glossy, and there was the most beautiful violet light pouring through the stained glass window. I felt a lump in my throat. I was nervous. I hadn’t put my trust in another person in a very long time. Then I saw a few honeybees zipping in the light. No one else noticed them. I wiggled my fingers in Jacob’s strong hands, feeling that Sheff was there with us. Maybe he’d come with the bees. Come from the other side, as Madame Zelda had said.

The young priest spoke the chosen liturgy. He was a pimply fellow I didn’t know. Father O’Connell had adamantly refused to marry me to a non-Catholic. We had no Mass because our union was not a holy sacrament or ecclesiastical union. The diocese had granted us permission to wed only after I agreed to raise my children as Catholic. The church was important to my parents.

Standing there, waiting for the ceremony to be over, I felt lopsided, like my left shoe was too big, like my left leg and left foot had suddenly shrunk. I heard one of the bees buzzing in my ear. Then it felt like my foot and the shoe were gone. I was off balance, dizzy. Then I was falling. Jacob’s hands were under my arms. The bee stung behind my ear. My knees brushed the carpet.

As Jacob lifted me up, my mother said, “Are you all right?” The priest, my father, and Gwen asked the same thing. Jacob said, “I’ll always catch you.” I felt an electric vibration shoot down my neck, the bee sting. My skin was vibrating. I said, “I do,” before the priest asked the question. I said it again at the right time. As we stepped down from the dais, I saw the honeybee dead by my foot.

Jacob said, “We did it!”

Outside, his truck was decorated with shaving cream.

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