Mad Honey: A Novel (46 page)

OLIVIA
10

MAY 14–16, 2019

Five months after

Awaiting a verdict. A snapshot: Tuesday.

When I was still married, Braden sometimes operated on patients whose spouses chose not to come to the hospital during their heart surgeries. They gardened or read or worked until the doctor called to say that the operation was finished and the patient was recovering.
Not everyone can handle being at a hospital,
Braden had said to me, but it seemed like a direct violation of marriage vows. Surely the fine print of “in sickness and in health” was the tacit agreement that you would keep vigil.

Now, waiting for the jury to return a verdict, I am starting to reassess my opinion. The problem with waiting is, well, that you have to wait. In the absence of knowledge, the mind is an amazing Tilt-A-Whirl of worst-case scenarios. Pacing a room doesn’t make it any bigger; watching a clock doesn’t make the time tick by.

Today has lasted six years, by my calculation. This morning we all trekked to the courthouse, even Jordan’s son Sam. Jordan says we are required to stay near the courtroom, because the jury could come back with a decision at any moment.

Except, they haven’t.

I haven’t eaten all day and neither has Asher. I feel jittery and shaky, like I’ve been mainlining coffee. Asher sits at the table in the conference room with his head pillowed on his arms, eyes closed—but I can tell from the flutter of the pulse at his neck that he’s not
asleep and not relaxed. Jordan and Selena are reading different sections of
The Boston Globe
. Sam is reading the third book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

“Do you like it?” I ask my nephew.

“It’s only the best book ever written,” Sam says. He quotes: “
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.
”

“Oh my God,” I murmur. “You
are
your father’s son.”

Sam looks up at me. “You don’t like it?”

“Too many orcs,” I say.

“Your aunt’s lying.” Jordan laughs. “She’s never even read it.”

“That’s not true,” I tell him. “It’s Braden’s favorite. He read it to me out loud when we’d drive up to Adams from Boston. He acted out all the characters.”

Jordan snorts. “Who would have thought we’d have something in common,” he says, and snaps the newspaper back into a shield obscuring his face.

I do not recall much of the book, except for Éowyn, the warrior facing the King of the Ringwraiths, who said no living man could kill him.
But no living man am I,
she said, pulling off her helmet so her hair cascaded to her waist.

Then she hacked him down.

I remember missing much of what Braden read after that, imagining what it would take to see being a woman as a strength, not a weakness.

“What book did
you
pick, Aunt Liv?” Sam asks.

I look at him, puzzled.

“For the car ride home?”

He looks up at me, the innocence in his face blinding. Because in his world, everyone gets a turn to pick. Except, it was
always
Braden’s turn. I remember suggesting books by Louise Erdrich and Anne Tyler and Octavia Butler, but we never actually read them on our journeys.

I wonder how long Sam will live in this bubble, until he is older and beaten down by the world. I try to imagine Asher, back when he was Sam’s age, but there are scars on him now I cannot see past.

We sit for seven hours in that goddamned room and at about 4:00
p.m
. we are finally called into the courtroom by the judge, who’s agreed to ask the jury about their status.

When the jury is brought in, the judge turns to the foreperson. “My understanding from the bailiff is that you are not close to reaching a verdict this evening. Is that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

Judge Byers sighs. “We are going to recess for the night. Do not read anything about the trial, do not turn on the news, or access information on any other media. Do not talk to anyone about the case—not even your spouse.”

I tug on the back of Jordan’s suit jacket. “What does this mean?” I whisper.

“It means,” he says, “that we come back tomorrow and do this all again.”

A SNAPSHOT:
Wednesday.

Selena has taken Sam back down to Portsmouth, to her mother. It’s clear that this trial will not be decided as quickly as she and Jordan had believed.

Jordan and I are at each other’s throats. He is breathing too loudly; my chewing of gum annoys him. It is like when we were younger and would try to kick each other’s feet under the dinner table.

“I fucking hate the fact that Gina Jewett can sit in her office but we’re jammed into this godforsaken conference room,” Jordan mutters. The DA’s office is in the courthouse building, and presumably it is where she’s been awaiting the verdict.

“Why does it matter?” I ask.

“Because she can
do
things,” Jordan says. “Make calls. Work. You know.”

I fold my arms. “I’m sorry, are we
keeping
you from your busy life? You’re retired.”

“Correction: I
was
retired,” Jordan says.

“Jesus,” Asher groans, his hands tunneling through his hair. “Can you two just
stop
?”

We both swivel toward him.

“We have to talk about it,” Asher says.

“Talk about what?” I ask.

“What happens when we lose.”

“We’re not going to lose,” Jordan says, a knee-jerk.

“You don’t know that,” Asher argues. “It can’t be good that it’s taking this long.”

“Is that what you’re worried about? Don’t be. There was a case in New Haven where a guy was found guilty of murder after six minutes of jury deliberations.”

“You’re saying it’s good that it’s taking this long?” I ask.

“I’m saying that there’s no way to know.”

Asher stands up until he is face-to-face with Jordan. He has a couple of inches on his uncle. “I want you to tell me the truth,” he says quietly. “About what’s going to happen.”

He doesn’t have to explain what he means. “If you’re found guilty, the penalty will be prison.” Jordan hesitates. “For life.”

A muscle clenches in Asher’s jaw, but he doesn’t even blink.

“If that’s the verdict, we will appeal,” Jordan explains. “But, Asher, I do not think that’s going to be the outcome. I have thirty-five years of experience trying cases, including the worst mass murder in New Hampshire history—so you need to trust me when I say that I think your case went well.”

By comparison to Peter Houghton, who killed nine classmates and a teacher?
I think.
Jesus Christ
.

A SNAPSHOT:
Wednesday
night.

After another day of unproductive deliberations, we drive home. There’s no food in the house. Dinner is canned soup and toast and honey.

Jordan, waiting for Selena to return, dries dishes while I wash. “Were you telling Asher the truth?” I ask.

He nods. “I’m not psychic, Liv. I can’t promise him that he’ll get acquitted. A jury is twelve total strangers; I have no idea what they’re thinking.” He carefully wipes down a bowl. “They say that when a jury files into the courtroom, you can tell what they’re going to say. If they refuse to make eye contact with the defendant, it’s a guilty verdict. If they do look at him, then it’s not guilty. But that’s basically an old wives’ tale.”

I take the bowl from his hand and set it into place on a cabinet shelf.

“What I
do
know,” Jordan says, “is what they
should
be thinking, based on the evidence…and if they’re doing their job, then Asher’s got a good chance.”

“I know. I just…I didn’t think it was going to take this long,” I tell him. “Either way.”

Just then Selena bombs into the kitchen. She drops her keys on the counter and brandishes a bottle of Tito’s.

“You know what passes the time?” she says. “Shots.”

A SNAPSHOT:
Thursday
,
dawn.

I can smell the skunk before I see the evidence—the odor wafting in ripe, rank waves on the spring breeze that blows from the hives toward the house. With my hat and veil and smoker, I head out to check the damage before I have to get ready for court.

Sometimes skunks skulk around the hives at night. They scratch until the bees are coaxed out, swat them till they’re injured, and eat them live. Around Lady Gaga’s colony I see claw marks at the entrance and scat on the matted grass. Even though it is early and still cool outside, Gaga’s bees are agitated and flying, irritably charging my veil, their buzz as high-pitched as a helicopter’s whine.

I am weighing the value of opening up the hive to make sure the queen is okay against getting them even more hot and bothered, when I feel a hand on my shoulder.

I whirl, my arms already raised in defense.

“Liv,” Mike Newcomb says, shocked. “I’m— It’s just me.”

My sudden motion has infuriated the bees again. They billow around us both in small, angry clouds. I step away from the hive and Mike follows, until the bees leave us alone.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says.

“I don’t like it when I can’t see what’s coming.”

“Noted,” Mike murmurs. “Although to be fair, you were in a lot more danger of being hurt by a bee than by me.” He sniffs the air. “Skunk?”

“Yeah. One got in here last night.”

“Will you show me?” he asks. “What you do?”

I nod, picking up the smoker, and using it to calm the bees. The few that are still riled up start to settle as I open the cover of Gaga’s hive and use my tool to pry one of the frames free. Slowly, I slide it out of the box and watch the bees crawl away so that I can look at the empty cells, the few with larvae curled in them, the rice-grain evidence of eggs. With a flip of my wrists, I scan the opposite side. I set the frame on the ground beside the hive, propped on its side, and unstick the next frame. It’s mechanical, methodical. It’s like swimming underwater, in a world where it feels like I’ve been drowning for days.

Three frames in, I find the queen, bustling around. “There you are,” I murmur.

“What a beauty,” Mike says, but he is not gazing down at the honeycomb. He’s looking at me.

Hurriedly, I put the frame back in the hive, and then move the others into formation, picking up the one that was balanced on the ground last. I use my hive tool to set the bee space the insects need to move between frames, and replace the cover. When I pull off my hat, I pretend that my veil is the reason I’m so flushed.

“If this is a work call,” I say, “you’re here awfully early.”

Mike watches me dump the embers from the smoker into a little pit I’ve dug with the heel of my boot. “Would you believe me if I said I’d come to buy honey?”

“Nobody has a honey emergency at six
a.m
.” I laugh.

“Then I guess I came to see how you’re holding up.”

I let my breath out in a long stream. “How I’m holding up,” I repeat. “Well, I’m overtired, and a skunk tried to get into one of my hives, and I had way too much to drink last night and none of that’s enough to take my mind off the fact that jury deliberations are going on their third day.”

Keeping his eyes on me the whole time, Mike closes the space between us and kisses me so softly that it might be a breath or a wish. His eyelashes brush my cheek; his hand slides around the back of my neck. He doesn’t hold me as much as he anchors me, so that I know that at any time, I could pull away.

But I don’t. I lean forward, and I kiss him back.

He tastes of mint and coffee, and I realize that I’m the one struggling to get closer, to bleed into his edges. He waits until I lock my arms around his neck and then he surges toward me, his hands on my spine and my shoulders and tangled in my hair, his lips and tongue consuming me like I am nectar.

Mike nips at me and I gasp, because it’s pain but it’s not; it’s soothed as soon as it stings.

The bees are a soundtrack. The feel of his fingers on my bare skin—my throat, my wrist, my face—is nearly overwhelming. It’s been that long since I’ve been held.

Pressed against me, I can feel how hard he is, how much closer he wants to be. But he is the one to drag his mouth away, to rest his forehead against mine. His voice, when he finds it, is shaking. “How was that for a distraction?” he asks.

I feel capsized, upended, inside out.
I don’t like it when I can’t see what’s coming.

Maybe this can be an exception.

“It’s a start,” I say.

A SNAPSHOT:
Thursday, 9:00
a.m
.

The verdict is in, the bailiff says.

It takes me and Jordan, on either side of Asher, to move him into the courtroom. He is wooden with fear. I take up my position behind
him, sitting beside Selena. Asher’s face is drained of color, his eyes wide and terrified. “I think I’m going to throw up,” he whispers over his shoulder.

If there is a presumption of innocence, why do juries say guilty or not guilty? Why not innocent or not innocent?

Asher’s sweating so profusely that the collar of his shirt is soaked.

This is the moment,
I think.
This is when I lose my child, or get him back.