Flight Patterns (21 page)

She stood as if to leave, but hesitated.

We stood, too, and after a moment she said, “There's something else. I wanted to ask your granddaddy if he remembered a man who showed up in town right before his truck was stolen. I was just a little
girl, but I remember it because my daddy had a story about it that he used to like to tell me. He was selling honey at the farmer's market and a man approached him, said he was looking for your granddaddy. Daddy had never seen the man before—and you know how it is here. Everybody knows everybody. Anyway, the stranger knew your granddaddy by name—said they'd met before the war.”

“And this was the same week the truck was stolen?”

“Yes. And I know it because it was the week of my fifth birthday. The man gave Daddy a jar of honey—his own he'd harvested from wherever he was from—I can't remember if Daddy never told me or if I've just forgotten it, but he said the man had an accent, so probably not from around here. Mama made me buttermilk pancakes for breakfast on my birthday, and I put that honey on them. It was some of the best-tasting honey I've ever had—not including tupelo, of course.” She licked her lips as she thought for a moment, as if she were tasting the honey again. “I remember it tasted like lavender.”

She smiled at us again, sliding her palms against her shorts as if mentally clearing her to-do list. “I should be going. Please tell your granddaddy that I was here asking after him.”

“I will. Thank you for coming, Florence.”

She headed toward the steps but paused at the top. “I almost forgot. And this is definitely something you shouldn't repeat. But . . . I was still there when they opened up the truck and could see what they pulled out. They found two jars of honey in a knapsack inside. It didn't have a label, but it's too dark to be tupelo honey—although if it's been there for over sixty years, who knows what color it used to be? But that's what made me remember the stranger—the honey.” With a final wave, she stepped off the porch and onto the walkway toward the front drive, her bee earrings swaying.

I sat down in a rocking chair, breathing deeply of the salt air and the green scent of sun-baked needlegrass, but could see only an old pickup truck drowning in swamp water, and a faceless man holding a jar of lavender honey.

“He who wants to lick honey must not shy away from the bees.”

Scottish proverb

—NED BLOODWORTH'S BEEKEEPER'S JOURNAL

Maisy

M
aisy was pushing her buggy through the produce aisle at the Piggly Wiggly, heading toward the checkout, when she heard her name called. She turned to find Caty Greene, the librarian at the municipal library, walking quickly toward her. Miss Caty, as everyone called her, was a transplant from somewhere up north, but she'd been in Apalach for so long that Maisy no longer remembered from where. She had quickly assimilated into her new home, her fast-paced gait the only giveaway that she wasn't native.

Miss Caty was reaching into her oversize satchel as she approached. She wore dangling oyster-shell earrings and a matching necklace on a blue silk cord—both of her own design. Maisy had several pieces of her own that she'd purchased over the years at Caty's stand at the weekly farmer's market.

“Your house was my next errand, so I'm glad I ran into you. Saved me a trip.” She smiled as she pulled out a thick stack of white paper, rubber-banded both ways to keep any errant pages from slipping out.

She smiled as she waited for Maisy to take the stack. “It's about the china your sister is looking for. She stopped by a few days ago asking me if I had access to various databases.” Miss Caty looked at the ceiling as if asking for divine guidance. “I'm a librarian. Of course I can access pretty much any obscure information one might need.”

“Of course,” Maisy said, taking the stack with both hands, noticing tiny cursive handwriting photocopied onto the first page. “What is this?”

“Georgia gave me the name Château de Beaulieu, an estate she found in her research near Monieux, France, and asked me to see if I could find any sort of paper trail—business transactions, marriages, legal proceedings, that sort of thing—from the second half of the nineteenth century that made mention of it.”

Maisy's eyes widened. Georgia hadn't mentioned this angle to her. Her first impulse was to feel slighted, the old feeling of being left out a familiar one. But it was quickly replaced with an odd pride in her sister. It was a unique track to the answer to the question of the china's provenance, one that would never have occurred to Maisy.

“And you found something,” Maisy said, eyeing the thick stack.

Miss Caty nodded sagely. “I would say so. There's a small museum in Monieux that has done an excellent job of digitizing all of the old records from the town's archives that have survived both world wars and a terrible fire in the early thirties. It only took a few clicks before I was directed to their database, and then shortly after that I turned up what looks like an estate manager's account books listing all expenditures at Beaulieu starting from around 1855 through 1939.”

Maisy carefully set the stack in the top of her buggy. “Thank you, Caty. I know Georgia will appreciate it.”

“No problem. It's what I do.” She smiled. “And tell Becky that I've just received those biographies of female tennis players that she asked for. Come by anytime—you know where to find me.”

They said good-bye, and then Maisy headed for the checkout.

The smell from the store's smokehouse drifted across the parking lot as Maisy loaded her grocery bags into the trunk of her car. She
looked up in surprise as someone grabbed hold of one of the bags in her hand. It was Lyle, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and looking so much like the boy she'd known in high school that her heart did the old familiar flip.

“Let me help you,” he said, lifting the bag from her hands and neatly placing it into the trunk.

“That's the milk. Make sure it's not on its side.”

“It's not,” he said without looking.

They continued loading the car without speaking. When they were finished, Maisy fished in her purse for the keys while Lyle returned the buggy to the corral. She slid behind the steering wheel and turned on the A/C, letting the cold air blast her in the face. She'd need cooling off even if it weren't almost summer.

He reappeared at her open door. “I'm guessing you've heard.”

Maisy nodded, unable to meet his eyes. Because every time she did, she thought of him in the cemetery telling her that he visited Lilyanna Joy there often. And that he still loved Maisy.

“Yes. From Florence via Georgia. She was there, so we got a firsthand account before any embellishments were added.” Maisy grabbed hold of her old anger so she could look into his face. And immediately regretted it.

“I'm sorry that the story about your granddaddy's truck got leaked before I could get a better handle on it. I wanted more time to gather the facts. It's an ugly story, and I was trying to shield you and Becky. I should have known better.”

“I don't need you to shield me, Lyle. And I can take care of Becky.” She lowered the window, then shut the car door, needing the separation from him. “Granddaddy isn't doing too well. Will you need him for your investigation?”

“Actually, I'm officially off the case. On account of Ned being my wife's grandfather. If they need a statement, they'll send somebody else. But unofficially I did pull the original police report, and it looks like your basic car theft. In his original statement, Ned said he
left the truck in the driveway overnight and in the morning it was gone. He got the insurance check and bought a new truck. Looks like a closed case to me. If the poor guy who stole it got stuck in the swamp, then I guess justice was more than served. Won't know a lot until the coroner determines the cause of death, and that could take weeks—if at all. The truck's been in the swamp for over sixty years, so there's a lot of deterioration of evidence. I'll keep you posted.”

“Thank you.” Maisy turned the key in the ignition.

“One more thing,” he said, placing his hand on the door as if to prevent her from closing the window. “I was wondering if you'd like to go to the Tupelo Honey Festival in Wewahitchka on May sixteenth. Becky asked me to take her, but I thought it would be fun if we went as a family. Just like old times.”

She was already shaking her head before he finished speaking. “I don't know, Lyle. She works with her new tennis coach on weekends now. . . .”

“The coach is flexible on time and date if we need to move it. Or we can go after her session on Saturday. She's doing so well in school, and working hard on her tennis. I think she'd appreciate us both being there. We're still a family, you know.”

A memory of the last festival she'd been to turned the blood in her veins icy cold. It had been the Seafood Festival, but it didn't matter. The association poisoned all festivals for her. She opened her mouth to speak, unable to stop the words even if she'd wanted to. “Should I ask Georgia if she'd like to go?”

She watched as anger flashed over Lyle's face. He leaned down toward her, his face only inches away. Narrowing his eyes, he said, “Only if you'd like her to join us. I'm just inviting you.”

He straightened, then slid out the pair of Ray-Bans he'd left tucked into the neck of his T-shirt and placed them on his face. “Just let me know,” he said as he tapped the flats of his hands on her door and walked back to his truck. Maisy watched just for a moment, then slowly slid her window up and drove away, careful not to look into
her rearview mirror, afraid that she'd see him watching her. And just as afraid that he wasn't.

The house was quiet when Maisy returned home. As she unloaded the groceries and put them away, she was surprised to find the dinner dishes loaded into the dishwasher and the pots and pans already scrubbed and drying in the dish drain. She smiled to herself, knowing Becky had done it without being asked, and wondered whether it was to sweeten Maisy up to get her to say yes about going to the festival with Lyle.

Or maybe she'd done it because even though she was teetering on the threshold of tweendom and was adept at getting on Maisy's last nerve, she was still a good kid who loved her mama. Maisy folded up the grocery bags and stuck them in the pantry, then went to find her daughter to thank her.

The door to her grandfather's room was slightly ajar as she passed it, the sound of a woman's voice coming through the opening so quietly Maisy thought she must be imagining it. Tapping lightly, she pushed it open to reveal her grandfather sitting up in bed, Birdie in the chair next to him. She held the broken saucer, and was leaning forward as if she'd just whispered something in his ear.

Neither one looked up as she entered, but Birdie sat back in her chair, looking down at the saucer cupped in one hand, the other placed loosely on top as if to hide it from view.

“Hi, Grandpa,” Maisy said as she entered, then stood next to Birdie. “Is everything all right?” She found herself half expecting Birdie to look up and say something, the words Maisy imagined hearing floating somewhere right outside her grasp. Her heart beat with a panicked thrum. What if Becky wasn't lying about Birdie talking?

Birdie stood and Maisy held her breath, waiting. But Birdie just leaned over and kissed her father's forehead, then walked toward the door, pausing briefly before leaving the room. Maisy clenched her teeth, focusing on the sense of panic, trying to identify its source, then realizing with some surprise that it wasn't the thought that Becky
hadn't been lying to her, but the fact that Birdie might have something to say.

“Do you need anything?” she asked her grandfather.

He slowly turned his eyes toward the water glass on the nightstand. Carefully she picked it up and helped him take a few sips before he turned his head away.

“Would you like me to turn on the television?”

He shook his head, his gaze focused past her shoulders toward the window.

“Would you like to go outside? I bet your bees miss you.”

He turned just his eyes toward her, the way a small child did when he knew he'd done something wrong. He grunted something that sounded like the word “no.”

She watched him for a moment. “I'll take you for a walk down to the dock tomorrow morning when it's a little cooler, all right?”

He didn't respond, his gaze focused on the window again.

Maisy checked the chart to see whether he'd been given his nighttime medications, including the antidepressant his doctor had prescribed. She saw Georgia's initials next to the checkmarks. She made a mental note to talk to his doctor about upping the dose.

He turned his head away from the window, an indication that he was ready to go to sleep.

She helped him move down in the bed, then fluffed the pillows behind his head before kissing his cheek.

“Good night, Grandpa,” she said as she stood, but his eyes were already closed. Maisy carefully took off his glasses and placed them on his bedside table, noticing his beekeeper's journal flipped open and upside down, like a bird stalled in flight. It was the notebook he carried with him every day as he went into his apiary, and where he jotted his thoughts and observations. He'd never allowed her to read it, although from time to time he'd share a favorite quote or proverb he'd discovered.

She glanced at him to make sure he was sound asleep—his ability to fall asleep quickly a side effect of his mediation—and after a brief moment of hesitation picked it up, feeling like a child left unsupervised
around a cookie jar. There were too many questions and not enough answers, and it wasn't her nature to wait until problems resolved themselves. The cover of the journal was old and soft from age and use. He didn't write in it every day, but he'd told her he'd been writing his observances in the same journal since he'd started beekeeping with his father in his late teens.

She opened it to the first entry, the pen strokes on the page faded to a pale blue. The date at the top read,
April 10, 1954
. She paused at the date, a thought jabbing at the back of her head. After a quick calculation, she looked down at the date again. In 1954 her grandfather would have been thirty-three. Glancing up at the full bookshelves against the wall that had remained despite the room's conversion to a bedroom, she scanned the spines, looking for another journal, one that might have been started when he'd been a teenager.