Hour of the Bees (22 page)

An ideal time to practice driving is about one in the morning, on the highway leading to the south part of Albuquerque. There’s almost no one else on the road, so you can just glide along at your own pace, alone. Which is a good thing, since I’ve never driven with any other cars around.

Today — or yesterday, I guess, technically — Mr. Adair made me stand in front of the class and say my name. If I could stand in front of my class now, I would say different things. I am different. On the inside.

I’m now the kind of person who sneaks out in the middle of the night and steals her sister’s car to tell her sick grandfather about a rainstorm, shattering probably a hundred laws: underage driving, running away, car theft.

I can’t think about it — it makes my hands shaky, and I need full concentration to drive.

Rain slaps the car, and after a few failed attempts, I crank up the windshield wipers.

Driving Alta’s car is way different from the truck. The truck is a beast, and you have to force it to succumb to your will. Alta’s car is smoother, touchier. The slightest tap on the gas, and it takes off. It’s a car that does what it wants. Not that I would expect anything different of a car owned by Alta.

A jackrabbit dodges the driver’s-side tire, and I jerk the wheel in surprise. It takes me ten whole seconds to steer back into my own lane. Sweat collects on my forehead.

A car whizzes past, headlights blinding me. “Oh, please, oh, please,” I whisper, clutching the wheel. I keep the car straight, muscles like steel, and try not to think about how crazy this is.

Finally, after what seems like hours later, I pull into the Seville.

I stop the car behind one of the boxy vans in the parking lot. Parking takes a minute to figure out, but when I’m sure that the car won’t roll away, I get out and pocket the keys — this will all be for nothing if I get murdered by Alta for trashing her car. Going through the front lobby is out of the question; visiting hours ended over four hours ago, at nine
PM
.

I run around the building until I find the back door, amazed that I actually made it here, that I’ll actually get to see Grandpa — until I see the number keypad, the same number keypad that locks the front entrance.

Of
course
they lock the back door, too! Otherwise, the old people would split in no time.

What was the number I watched Dad enter just two days ago? I try combo after combo, but nothing makes the light on the number pad flash green and the doors slide open. I rack my brain, but all that comes to mind is a mosaic of numbers from my first day of school: mine and Manny’s locker combination, the numbers of my different classrooms . . .

Rain pelts my back and soaks my hair. This was a stupid idea. I should head home now, before anyone wakes up and realizes I’m gone.

Just when I’m about to trudge back to the car, defeated, a flash comes to me: Dad, staring at his phone, punching in the code with the rough fingers of someone who’s been working all summer on a sheep ranch.

I put in the numbers: 1412.

The sliding doors open, and I slip into the hallway. I can’t believe it’s this easy. No blaring alarms. No flashing lights. No armed security guards escorting me off the premises. But even though I’m grateful, I can’t help feeling annoyed on behalf of the residents. Is this what their life savings are paying for? A measly four-digit code is all that stands between them and middle-of-the-night burst-ins from anxious granddaughters?

The storm rumbles, and I jump and give a tiny squeal. One more number to remember: my grandpa’s room number. I tiptoe until an intersection of hallways looks familiar and see his door, room 104.

A clipboard next to the door has his name on it and a printout of his schedule for the next day. Wow, they schedule everything for him now, I realize. When he watches TV, when he showers, when he eats, when he pees. Everything’s scheduled . . . except me.

Footsteps.

Someone’s walking down the hall. I tuck myself around a corner and watch a nurse emerge from the lobby. Could she possibly have heard the noise I made? I imagine having to explain myself to the nurse, and for a second, I’m scared stiff. What was I thinking, coming here like I did? I could have died on the drive here. And when Mom and Dad and Alta find out what happened, I’ll be as good as dead. I should call Mom, confess to stealing the car, and tell her where to pick me up.

But then a familiar buzz sounds near my ear.

“I wondered when you’d show up,” I whisper. A bee flies around my head twice, then buzzes down the hall. As though I told it what to do, it heads straight for the nurse and buzzes in her face. She tries to flick it away, but the bee corrals her back toward the lobby.

Seizing my chance, I turn the corner and creak open Grandpa’s door.

I’m surprised to find him out of his bed, and awake. He’s staring at the TV, which isn’t even on. His wicker chair’s been replaced by a maroon recliner, its cushions nearly swallowing his frail body. The curtains at his window are shut. Have they been like that all day?

“Grandpa?” I whisper.

But he doesn’t move.

“Grandpa, it’s me, Carol,” I say, a little louder. “I’m sorry to come so late, I just . . . I couldn’t sleep.”

He’s still a wide-eyed corpse, as flat as the desert horizon. I have to double-check that he’s breathing, but yes, his chest rises and falls in slow motion.

I walk right past him and throw open his curtains. “Look, Grandpa. It’s raining. And guess what else? It’s raining at the ranch! Drought’s over.” My words flow out smoothly, though I’m a knot of nerves.

That burgundy wool blanket is tucked over his legs. His wedding blanket, I realize. The gift from Rosa to her groom on the night they got married.

I shake my head. That was from the story. I’m no better than Grandpa, losing sight of what’s real and what’s make-believe.

Right as I think this, I see his hands, splayed open, palms facing up. I remember when he slashed his hand in the closet — I
know
he cut it; the memory of his blood makes me queasy even now. His hand, sliced like a potato, and seconds later, clean. Healed.

The gift of the tree . . .
What other explanation could there be?

No. No. It was only a story.

But the story is the reason I’m here.

I close my eyes and tilt my head. “It sounds like bees,” I whisper, and I’m not exaggerating. The pitter-patter of rain against the window could be an army of bees, droning as they fly. “One hundred years of drought, and Dad made you leave right before it ended,” I say, eyes misting over.

Why is Grandpa so quiet? Why isn’t he looking up at me with those magnetic eyes, echoing me:
Caro-leeen-a, did you say it’s raining at the ranch?
The sedatives have worn off — he’s not pale anymore, not stuck in his bed, like he was two days ago — so why is he just sitting there, barely even blinking?

Suddenly, fear trickles down my back like an ice cube. Maybe I’m too late, and he’s already forgotten everything — the ranch and the drought and the story about the tree.

Maybe he’s already forgotten me.

Another savior bee flies to the rescue. It hovers between us, buzzing loudly against the backdrop of rainfall. I point triumphantly to the bee. “Grandpa, they follow me! Just like they followed Rosa. In the story.”

I don’t know whether it was my words or the bee, but Grandpa finally smiles, his eyes lighting up, blue ringed with gold. His voice is crackly, the first words spoken to me — or maybe to anyone — since the ranch: “Take me home, Caro-leeen-a.”

“Take you . . . home?” I shake my head. “Grandpa, this is your home now.”

“I want to see it,” he says.

“Maybe in the morning.” I hear myself say this and cringe; I sound exactly like my parents, my wonderful parents who just don’t understand.

“Take me home, Caro-leeen-a,” Grandpa says again, and sits up with strength I didn’t know he had.

Home
.

An idea is flooding my mind, a big one, taller than the mesas.

Things are only impossible if you stop to think about them
.

And so, I don’t think. “Grandpa, listen,” I say. “I can take you home, home to the ranch, but we have to go right now.” I look around. “Can the window open?”

He shakes his head, and his sedation shakes off him like water. “This place is a box. Sealed like a coffin. Codes to get in and codes to get out.”

“The code to the doors?” I say. “I know it! It’s one-four-one-two.”

He looks at me like I’ve just solved a calculus problem.

“How else do you think I got in here?” I say.

Grandpa smiles, then gives me instructions. “Go out the back door and pull the car up as close as you can,
chiquita
. And make sure no one sees you.”

“What, are you going to make a run for it?” I say, incredulous.

“Just be waiting, Caro-leeen-a,” he says, and pulls on his boots. He’s so frail, but his snake-stomping boots make him seem stronger, taller.

I sneak down the hallway and out the back door, into the rain, palms sweating. With less difficulty than before, I bring Alta’s car to the curb and wait.

But waiting means thinking — and thinking means doubting. How exactly is Grandpa getting out? And did I really let a dementia-ridden old man convince me to drive my sister’s stolen car three hours south in the pouring rain? I must be crazy myself.

The car clock says 1:45. If we get right on the road, we can be at the ranch by sunrise. I wince; it’ll be a miracle if I can get Alta’s car back before anyone notices it’s gone.

Don’t think. Just do
.

Grandpa suddenly looms from the darkness of the doorway, like a ship out of fog. He hobbles on his stiff, ancient legs, and I’m reminded of Inés, the ancient, magic dog, hobbling down the porch steps on that first day at the ranch.

An alarm rings inside the Seville, red emergency lights blinking along the windows. My heartbeat picks up the pace.

“What happened?” I cry as Grandpa climbs into the passenger seat and slams the door. “Why are there alarms?”

“Everyone has to stay in their boxes,” he says. “Now go.”

I squeal Alta’s car through the rainy parking lot — the alarms are still audible from the main road. “What happened?” I repeat. “Did you forget the code?”

Grandpa says nothing, his face turned toward the window, staring at the rain.

Even though I know it’s not his fault, even though I know that his mind is slippery enough to forget even the most important of details, I slap my hand against the steering wheel in frustration. “How could you forget it? It was only four little numbers! Now they’re going to know you’re gone.”

What on earth have I done? Now there’s no chance our middle-of-the-night escapade will remain a secret.

As if on cue, my phone buzzes in my pocket. And even without looking, I know it’s Mom calling.

I pull over, fumbling to turn the hazard lights on before answering.

“H-hello?” I answer.

“Carol! Oh, thank God — she’s okay, she’s alive.” In the background, Dad sighs with relief. My guts twist with guilt.

“Where are you?” Mom shouts. “Is Serge with you? We got a call from the Seville. Oh, Carol, please tell me you didn’t take Alta’s car!”

“Mom, we’re fine, we’re safe.”

“Carolina, tell us where you are, right now. I’m coming to get you.”

I consider. I’m already busted. Grounded, at least, but possibly — and justifiably — in enough trouble to become the stuff of legend in junior high schools around New Mexico. How much worse trouble could I be in, really?

“Carol?” Mom says. “What’s happening? Where are you?”

I feel awful as I do this, but I mutter, “I’m fine. Be home soon,” and shut my phone off completely.

I steer back onto the highway and drive. When we pass out of the city limits, the radio crackles into static, and we’re left with silence brewing, fears bubbling. I speak only once we are through the purple, rain-stained mountains, once alarms and civilization and buildings fade away.

“How does it end?” I say. “The story.”

Grandpa’s hands fly to cover his eyes. “Death,” he says, just like Dad said when he told me his version of the ending. “It ends with death. Rosa knew it, and now I do, too. There’s no other way.”

“No,” I say, tears prickling. “It can’t end like that. You said it yourself. Stories don’t end — they have new beginnings. We’ve got to find the new beginning, Grandpa.”

“All things end,” he says. “I am afraid of endings. Stories, lives . . . It all ends.”

My knuckles bulge, I’m gripping the steering wheel so hard. “Of course you’re afraid,” I say. “What’s scarier than death?”

“Rosa was . . . was not afraid of the ending. She was not afraid to go. To die,” he says, with some difficulty. “Me, I feel like I’ve been dying for a thousand years.”

I force my concentration back to the road, but Grandpa’s words stay with me the rest of the drive.

The rain gets worse as we near the ranch, heavy splotches thudding Alta’s windshield.

“It’s really coming down,” I whisper. I try to slow down through the puddles, but we slide no matter what I do.

“A hundred years.” My grandfather is reverent as he surveys the familiar land.

In the muted light of the rainstorm, the ranch is gray and faded, like a photograph still developing, a filter of dust and water.

I’m about to pull off the dirt road and head for the driveway when it happens.

We hit a slick patch, and the car gets a mind of its own. It spins like a bumper car, rain pelting the vehicle in loud thumps. I can’t tell if I’m screaming, or if it’s just noise in my head.

Grandpa claws at the dashboard, but his fingers are too weak, and still we’re spinning, spinning. Two rotations we’ve made, and my head is permanently cranked to the right with the force of the curve.

I clench the wheel, wanting control. But grasping the wheel forces the car out of its graceful spin, which was coming to a slow end. Instead, we tip over.

We tumble over, so we’re upside down, then we’re right side up. Now we’re going over again, and my hair’s in my face so I can’t see my grandpa. I reach for his arm. It’s mostly dangling flesh, but I grasp it. We’re upside down, hanging by our seat belts.