Katie's Dream (12 page)

“Queens don't leave the hive,” Franky told her. “Except to swarm, and that ain't what the story's about.”

“Right,” Samuel went on. “Anyway, the little princess bee was all alone and far from home, and she didn't know what to do.”

“Did she cry?” Sarah asked.

“A little bit. But she was very brave. She flew right down
into a perfect patch of flowers and sat on the very prettiest little daisy, because she knew that some other bees would come sometime and find those flowers too.”

I wondered if this was the story Samuel'd had in mind at first, or if he'd started with any idea at all. Maybe he just let a story happen, the way Grandma Pearl had made vegetable soup with whatever came up at the moment.

“She waited there a long time,” Samuel went on. “It started to rain, but the princess bee didn't move very far. She just slid under the daisy petals and waited some more, all alone.”

I heard Katie sniff. Maybe she knew how that felt.

“Finally, after a long time, the sun came out again, and some other bees were flying around, looking for the best flowers they could find to make honey with. And they found the little princess, sitting on a daisy petal and drying out in the sun.”

“Were they her bees?” Sarah asked. “From her own hive?”

“No. But they were very friendly. They took her home and fed her honeycomb, and she took a nice long nap cuddled up in one of the little bee rooms.”

“How'd she get home?” Rorey asked.

“Just a minute,” Samuel told her. “I'm getting to that. It got to be night, and all the other bees were buzzing around, trying to figure out where the little princess came from. But when she woke up, she couldn't tell them. She didn't even know which direction she'd flown, because she'd turned so many times and gone so far.”

He glanced at me again, and I heard him sigh. Dear Samuel. He had so much on his shoulders.

“Every day for many days, the queen of that hive sent her workers out in all directions, looking for the hive that the princess had come from. And every day the princess's own hive sent out workers too, just to look for her. Finally one day, at the top of a giant sunflower, two little
bees bumped into each other and asked what the other one was doing there. ‘I'm up here high looking for the princess's beehive,' said the first one. ‘Well, I'm looking for the princess,' said the other. ‘Because she hasn't come home.' And then they both knew that they'd found what they were looking for. They flew all the way to the hive where the princess was playing with other little bees just her size. And the bee that was looking for her took her all the way home.”

He glanced at Franky, who was up on his elbows, and at Katie, who was staring at the ceiling again. “But they didn't go alone,” he went on. “Half the bees from the new hive went with them, just to visit. And every summer after that, bees from both hives went back and forth, because they stayed friends forever. So much that the littlest bees weren't always sure which bees belonged to which hive. And when the princess bee became a queen, she swarmed right over to the pretty flower patch so she could see those daisies right outside.”

“Why'd she want to see the daisies?” Rorey wanted to know.

“Because she met her first new friend there. When she'd been really alone, God sent bees that she didn't even know about before, and she ended up with twice as many friends that really cared about her.”

“That's kind of like our families,” Sarah said. “Only we wasn't alone in the flowers.”

I could see Franky looking at Katie, and I knew he was thinking. Katie'd been pretty misplaced, like the bee. I was surprised at Samuel for making such a direct reference to it.

“I bet the queen bee was glad to see the princess,” Rorey said.

Oh, this was awkward. How would Katie feel? What if she thought of her own mother, who might not be so glad to see her?

Katie didn't look at any of us. She just kept staring up at the ceiling, not moving at all. “Do bees have daddies?” she finally asked.

Samuel sat silent for a moment. Looking at the floor and then at the little girl in front of him. “I guess they must.”

“They don't know 'em, though,” Franky added. “They only know the queen. There's boys that's the fathers, but they don't know which ones. We learned that at school.”

“Well,” Rorey said. “Next time I see her, I'm gonna tell Teacher you ain't dumb, 'least about bees!”

Samuel wasn't paying a bit of attention to Franky or Rorey. Little Katie's hand had crept toward him, and he took it in his.

“I wish you was really my daddy,” she whispered. “Maybe you could be.”

“I'm sorry,” he whispered back. “But I can be your friend. Just like those bees.”

Samuel stayed in the sitting room until they were all asleep and then eased up quietly and went in to our bed. I followed and sat beside him, hoping he'd want to talk.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“Thank you.” He sounded so far away.

I knew he was hurt that I might not believe him. No matter what, I should believe him. What was wrong with my thinking?

“I forgot to tell you,” he said suddenly. “I saw Miss Hazel in town. She said Pastor's wife would be talking to you about starting a church choir. She's pretty upset about it.”

“I guess she always needs to be upset about something.”

He lay there with his shirt off in the heat of our house as the wind tossed cooler air through the still-open window. Staring up at the ceiling, maybe deep in thought, he didn't answer me.

I'd shared so much with Samuel. The wonders of two children. The grief of losing Emma. But especially love like I'd never known before. I should've apologized to him. I should've told him his word meant more to me than all the evidence in the world, more than pictures or names or what anyone else could say. But just as I was about to speak, I thought I heard a sound from the sitting room again. A sob and then movement.

Samuel started to get up, but I stopped him. “Stay and rest. I'll go.”

I went quickly, knowing it would be Katie who I found up. She was leaning her head against the wall in the corner closest to Sarah, crying so quietly now I could barely hear her. The others were still asleep, and I wondered if Katie might really be too. But when I came near, she grasped hold of me, breathing hard. The poor child was scared, just scared in the thunderous dark, here in our house that still seemed so strange to her. I held her, and she clung to me, crying softly into my blouse.

After a while I could hear it start to drip rain. And then I heard Samuel rise up and shut our bedroom window, then move through the house, shutting other windows. Finally he stood in the doorway, looking in at us, but he didn't say anything before going back to our room.

I just stayed where I was until Katie finally dropped back to sleep. Then I scooted a pillow close and eased her carefully down onto the blanket beside Sarah. I tiptoed back to bed, hoping to find Samuel still awake. I needed the talk we should've had before, the strong and gentle arms I should've taken advantage of earlier in the barn. But Samuel lay with one arm across his face, still in his work denims, sound asleep.

EIGHT

Samuel

Mother's liquor bottles were strewn over her dresser top, most empty, some on their sides, some with a bit of their poison remaining. She lay on the floor by the bed, where she'd fallen on her face the night before.

My father was on the couch in the living room, an uninvited guest after an absence of nearly a year. Edward was gone again. I wasn't sure if he'd even been home last night.

I got my books from the corner table, my sweater from a pile of clothes on the floor. I could get to school. If I managed to get out the door without waking anyone.

Asleep on the couch, our father didn't look much older than Edward. Mother called him a “young buck,” but she despised him as much as he despised her.

I thought about breakfast, about lunch at school, but I didn't even bother to check our kitchen cupboards. I knew
what I'd find. Endless bottles. I often wondered why my mother valued them so much that she never threw any away. Edward did. Edward would collect them in gunny-sacks and throw them at the school building or the street-lights or the front window of Calding's Corner Store.

I almost made it out. I was only three feet from the door when Dad sat up and stopped me cold with his yell. “Samuel!”

His face was white. Chalky white. His dark eyes were big and frightening. He grabbed me, threw my books across the room . . .

I opened my eyes in the darkness. Dreaming again. An irritating habit I'd somehow fallen back into.

It was hot. Too hot to stay in bed next to Julia's warmth, at least until I found a way to cool off a bit. I walked to the kitchen and then outside, wondering what time it could be. Buckley the rooster hadn't crowed. And there was no sign of the sun.

I went to the well and doused my head with water. The storm was over, but it had rained little and left no cooling influence. This would be a steamy day if it was this hot even before daylight.

I sat on the edge of the well's hard wood platform, letting the cool water drip down over my shoulders and back. I thought of Mother actually reading me a book once and another time kissing my cheek as she tucked the covers tight around me on a snowy night. Such moments were rare, but they happened, and they made me want to pray for her all the more. She had a goodness about her, hidden under all the garbage that enslaved her. Maybe Father had too, but his was even more buried. I only saw it once.

“Samuel's a strong name,” he told me when I was eight. “I always did like it. I gave you a decent, strong name
so you'd have that even if I couldn't give you nothing else.”

That was the last time I saw him. For so long he'd been dropping in unexpected, with months or even years between visits. But he never came back after that. And then when I was Robert's size, Mother said he was dead. Drowned in some river somewhere.

Whiskers sauntered up and pushed his nose under my hand. I petted him, feeling obligated, I guess. It wasn't often he was so insistent. “Silly dog,” I scolded. “What are you doing awake at this hour?”

Over in the timber I could hear the frogs singing. A howl swept in with the breeze coming from the other way. Coyote, maybe. Whiskers heard it too. His hair bristled a bit, and he looked out over the field.

“Relax,” I told him. “They're not going to bother you. You're bigger than they are.”

But he whined a little, prancing back and forth. Maybe he'd been dreaming too.

I stood up and stretched, thinking I could catch a little more sleep before the day started. But Sukey started lowing in the barn. I don't know if she heard me or not, but she usually didn't make a sound. I went to the house for a lantern so I could check on her and Lula Bell, just to make sure there was no disturbance.

Sukey was bawling when I got to the barn. Her calf was asleep in the hay. The howling I'd heard was sounding closer, but such a thing had never bothered her before. I patted her nose and told her everything was all right. Then I went to check on Lula Bell, two stalls down.