She wandered into the space between the hives. Perhaps this year, she would split another to keep combating her losses. It was a hard world for bees. Every year, the air smelled more like ozone, and fewer returned. They got lost in attics, mistook blouses for blossoms, ran afoul of fly swatters, were poisoned en masse by insecticides. Bees knew as well as humans about the dead. They appointed their own undertakers, who towed their bodies away from the hive, away from the new life trying to grow.

  No one was around, so Cassie didn’t bother with her apiarist suit as she pulled a frame from the nearest hive. It was the first home she’d tried to build for them, gleaming white with ten frames inside. A couple of bees settled on her fingers, another tickling her wrist in its search for pollen or perhaps stray drops of honey. Even in the beginning—when that first hive came home with her from the blind auction of a storage unit, a gift she had not asked for or expected—she didn’t use a suit. All these years, and never once had one of her bees stung her. Some people never saw more than the stingers.

  She scraped her fingernail along the corner of the frame to check on the bounty underneath. They immediately scuttled over to clean and patch it. She dipped her finger and came away with a few drops. Tasted it. Wildflowers—clover too.

  She gave jars of honey to Valerie for pies, to Diego to send his children down in Houston, and sent at least a dozen jars to Mom every year, to serve the members of her book club. The day Mitch had returned from Little Rock in shambles from his broken relationship, she’d given him honey too. She still remembered the electric thrum she had felt, seeing him slumped on a lawn chair on Destiny’s dock as if he’d never left at all. But she hadn’t known what to say to him. There had been no way to tell him how she’d felt seeing him leave and how elated yet how sad she was to see him again in that state. He probably didn’t even remember, but she had snuck over, early in the morning, and left a basket with two jars of honey and a fresh loaf of bread still warm from the oven wrapped in cotton cloth. When she couldn’t find the words for what she felt, the language of bees sufficed.

  There was no sound of lapping water, boat motors, or laughing children. Bees wove sensible tight harmonies that she could wrap herself in until it was all she heard.

  Usually. She heard the heavy pull of tires on gravel in the distance, and then Mom’s huge station wagon pulled into her driveway and sprawled on the grass.

  Cassie slipped the frame back into place and hurried across the lawn as the car shut off. The passenger door opened, and Bolt loped out. He’d grown a little even since Christmas, lankier and blonder than ever. He approached and tossed an arm around her, already smelling of sunscreen. He was sandy and good-looking, a little like a golden retriever, with limbs too long and feet too big for the rest of him.

  “Hey, Cassie,” he said.

  “You’re getting so tall.” Cassie patted his back. They didn’t look very similar; he was tan where she was pale, and she was dark-haired where he was blond, but there was some reflection of each other in their bones. She had been ten when he was born, and her preteen years had been consumed by learning how diapers worked and how to bottle-feed a child, watching Bolt growing at lightning speeds. He’d been quick to speak, quick to walk, quick to run.

  Mom followed, kissing Cassie’s cheek. “You’re looking very freckled. Are you wearing your sunscreen?”

  “You’re early,” Cassie said, moving into her embrace. “I thought you’d call when you were close.”

  “And where’s your phone, huh?” Mom smelled faintly like her nicotine gum.

  “It’s right over…” The phone wasn’t in her direct sight line, and Cassie couldn’t remember the last time she’d charged it. Oh well. It was somewhere. Unless she’d accidentally sold it at the shop.

  “I don’t know why you’re not glued to it like everyone else these days.” Mom had been a hollerin’, smokin’, beerin’, fightin’ Katharine Hepburn. Cassie didn’t holler, smoke, beer (much), or fight, and she had never resembled any movie stars. She’d never had the curves that now had expanded like sand filling the bottom of Mom’s hourglass.

  She patted Cassie’s back and pushed her toward the door and through to the kitchen breakfast table. Behind them, Bolt jogged in with Mom’s cheetah-patterned overnight bag.

  “I got your room ready,” Cassie said to him. “If you want to drop your things.”

  Bolt paused and cut his gaze across to Mom. And there came a familiar feeling, of the two of them communicating over her head, silent words in a secret code she didn’t know.

  “Right. Cassie girl, Bolt and I were talking on the ride up,” Mom began. She picked up Cassie’s quilt from the back of the loveseat and dusted it off. “And I thought it might be a good idea if he stayed down at Valerie’s.”

  “Oh,” was all Cassie could reply.

  Bolt was still smiling, but there was a worried tinge turning it sour now.

  “She’s got one of the unrenovated rooms available; I just called,” Mom went on. “He’ll be working there in the mornings and at the marina in the afternoon, so it would just be easier. And she’s got an internet connection all set up for the guests now, which would help him get ahead in school, and that way you wouldn’t have to clean up after a teenage boy all summer.”

  “It’s really no trouble for me. I was expecting him to stay,” Cassie said and again felt their silent line of communication burn.

  “I’ll basically be staying with you,” Bolt added in a hurry. “Just down the hill a little ways.” The Grand Destiny’s glowing sign was visible from the top of the path.

  All at once, Cassie understood and felt like a fool. The two of them were always very careful about her feelings. Cassie had been branded as strange and fragile before Bolt was even born, a freak child who threw tantrums when her mother tried to get her on a boat and fought night terrors that glistened blue and tasted like mud in her throat.

  It must have been decided in the car. She could picture it almost as if she’d been there, Bolt’s cheek pressed against a window, arguing with a mixture of guilt and resolve, Mom’s frustrated hands clamped on the wheel as she relented and made a frantic, last-minute call to Valerie for new accommodations. They were painting over the truth: Bolt didn’t want to spend all summer with no company but his odd older sister. Cassie sometimes wondered where he had gone, the sweet little boy who used to run to her instead of Mom to read him a story at bedtime.

  Cassie felt a wild urge to tell them they could spare her the charade; she wasn’t a child. But she would play along, or else Bolt would feel guilty all summer.

  So instead she nodded. “That’s a good idea. I didn’t remember to get new sheets for the bed anyway.”

  It was the right thing to say. Now everyone looked relieved.

  “Can I go to the marina?” Bolt asked, turning to Mom. “I think Rig’s down there, and he said to find him when I got here.”

  “Yes, but only if you’re back for lunch. That means two hours and no more,” Mom cautioned him, and in a flash, with a final grin at Cassie, Bolt was off, chasing his way down to the water.

  “Now,” Mom said. “We’ve got to straighten up a little, Cassie girl; I don’t know how you live like this.”

  “Sure,” Cassie sighed and stood to get a broom while Mom dug out the all-purpose cleaner and a few rags. It was easier to give in to Mom’s wild hares. She knew from experience: with Mom in the house, everything was much tidier, and in comparison, Cassie got younger, dirtier, and clumsier. She’d been a bad child, Mom often said, one who’d cried and screamed and threw tantrums like no one’s business. It was unconscious regression; with Mom in the house, even Cassie’s dreams grew stark and sharp as winter branches. She always had the worst dreams in the double-wide. It made her small again, crying in her damp swimsuit, with scratches on her arms all cold and hot, while Mom paced frantically. They’d never quite gotten the muddy stain out of the carpet and couch cushions.

  Mom was happy now, though, eager to relay compliments her friends had given Cassie’s last batch of honey, tell her about Bolt’s ACT scores, and describe a Japanese vase she saw at a store that she thought Cassie would like. So Cassie never said much about it. The thought of Mom’s stricken expression if she ever got the impression Cassie didn’t want her around—no. It was unbearable. Besides, she had missed her, and it had been a few months, so Cassie felt more charitably toward her.

  Soon, Mom scrubbed the counters, Cassie swept the floors for the second time in two days, and Mom unearthed boxes from the storage closet, a surreptitious hint that Cassie needed to organize. Mom had cleaned the refrigerator, the floors were freshly mopped, and the fixings for lunchtime sandwiches were out on the counter when they took a break because Mom could only go so long without caffeine.

  The silence was companionable as the perfume of coffee permeated the entire house, which was so long and narrow that smells had nowhere to go. Noise had nowhere to go, people had nowhere to go in that long shotgun barrel, bedroom leading to bedroom leading to bathroom leading to kitchen.

  Cassie made the cups while Mom sliced tomatoes and laid lettuce out to dry. Bolt’s two hours would be up relatively soon. They talked very little during the process.

  “Cream?”

  “Only if it’s nonfat.”

  “I don’t have that. Sorry.”

  “Well…just a smidge.”

  When she’d moved out, Mom had taken the strings of plastic peppers Cassie hadn’t liked, the decorative porcelain bowls of fruit, the strange dancing half goat half men that once had been on the windowsills. Cassie had replaced them with homemade candles, and her favorite antiques—not ones from the lake but from estate sales, the things that had seemed to be especially loved. A child’s huggable, sagging teddy. A music box, hand-carved wood with the inner mechanism showing. The crudely formed yet smooth-worn horse.

  Putting down her soggy rag, Mom stood in the window, steam from the coffee curling up from the mug like a cat’s tail. Her skin looked translucent and fragile, bathed in that light. The roots of her hair were like dandelion fuzz.

  Cassie curled her legs under her at the kitchen table. Then she realized Mom wasn’t looking out the window but at the yellow paint Cassie had spread on the lower pane, painted so thick, nothing below the sky was visible. Specifically, Lake Prosper wasn’t visible. Embarrassment pricked up her spine.

  “You used to love that water,” Mom said finally. “So why would you do a thing like this?” She tapped the painted glass. “And if you have to ruin your window to avoid looking at it, why don’t you just move? You can’t be keeping this place for my sake or Bolt’s.”

  It was always like this. The more Mom said, the more Cassie’s tongue swelled, until words were impossible.

  Mom scratched at it with one fingernail. It flaked, but Cassie had painted it on thick. There was only more yellow underneath. “What did you used to call your little friend? That little made-up playmate?”

  Cassie swallowed around her tongue, which spasmed in her mouth, choking her on songs from a sunbaked homeland that wasn’t hers, with Italian words the older girl knew by heart but barely understood. She envisioned strong arms, that confident laugh, and skin so tanned, it seemed like the sun would never burn it, only make it glow.

  “Catfish,” Mom recalled. “You used to make yourself so happy with your imagination. I moved us here, and you loved it so much, I thought that once, finally, I’d done the right thing…” Mom cut herself off, turning to look at her, with a frank sip of coffee. “What did you say happened to her? Most kids just outgrow imaginary friends, but it was so horrible what you imagined happened to yours.”

  The back of her neck felt cold, and she took a sip of coffee to wash down the muddy taste in her mouth. “I don’t remember.”

  “You had such a lively little mind.” Mom’s face was set now, her gaze steady. This would not be a conversation Cassie could escape. The fish trap had closed around her. “But I have to say something. It’s soured. That bright thing in your head. It just went bad somehow, sometime when you were growing up, and it scares me for you.”

  Not this again, Cassie wished, though wishes had never proved particularly helpful to her before. Of course, Mom couldn’t just let it be. Of course, she had to get her two cents in before Bolt came back. She had twelve hours here, barely enough time to scrub and needle her daughter into shape. And Cassie had been so careful not to blab about the antiques and the bees past the point of interest and hadn’t complained about the reorganizing—“I’m fine,” she said.

  “You don’t date. Your only friend is Valerie, a woman older than your mother. You live in your childhood home, barely making a profit, when you could be out there making something of yourself. I don’t think it’s good for you to be here alone anymore.”

  Cassie curled her hands too tight around her coffee cup. It scraped along the table.

  “If you’re staying because of the land, or me, or Grandad, don’t—”

  “I’m not staying for you,” Cassie cut over her and bit her lip. She hated the way confrontation made her feel, sensitive and wounded. “I’m not staying for you. I like it here.”

  “You hate it here, Cassie!” Mom exclaimed. “You painted over your window so you couldn’t see the lake!”

  “You don’t know what I want, Mom,” Cassie replied, and that exposed-nerve feeling grew.

  “I know what I see,” Mom countered, crowding over to the table and reaching for her, capturing Cassie’s hands and pulling them toward her. “Your life is so small, and I know you don’t like it when I say it, but you’re too old to be coddled.”

  Coddled? Mom had never coddled her. Mom didn’t know how to coddle anyone; she valued toughness too much. Cassie pressed her teeth together.

  “Didn’t I offer to send you to college? Only you said no.”

  Outside, the bees were swarming into a black storm cloud.

  Mom was well into her stride now, a train clamped onto its track, and Cassie was younger than ever in the face of it. She was six again, tantrums boiling up from her gut and into her throat. “I didn’t work to give you and Bolt a future that was better than mine to watch you sit around here like I did at your age, wasting your youth the way I wasted mine—”

  “Stop it!”

  The bees outside went silent. For a moment, even the wind stilled. Mom caught her breath, ruffled, and before she collected herself, Cassie pressed a hand to her forehead.

  “Stop it,” Cassie repeated softly. “Mom, I don’t want to fight. Please.”

  Mom let go of her hands and folded her arms, sitting back. Her eyes shuttered, lights out, doors locked, keys thrown away. Cassie had shocked her into bewildered muteness.

  “I’m fine,” Cassie tried out. “I’m happy here. I’m happy. I’m an adult. I like my life.” It sounded flimsy. But it was the truth. It wasn’t a town, the collection of people who lived here, and hers wasn’t a fancy home. The crusty retirees who had earned their relaxation, the regional antique dealers who were always happy to consult, Valerie and Mitch, the shop and its treasures. Maybe, just maybe, Grandad would be proud to know she hadn’t let it all rust.

  “I don’t want to fight,” Cassie said again, instead of explaining. “I want to have a nice day. I thought maybe we should drive into Charlene for dinner, go to the Hotel Saint Germain, and have those burgers Bolt likes, and maybe go to an estate sale.”

  It wasn’t an answer, nor an end to the fight, but it made the corners of Mom’s mouth soften. It was enough, just barely, to get them through the rest of the day.

  * * *

  Patient as the second damn coming, Lark waited for Mitch to get back to her about his antique-store friend. Like the universe itself, her task on the Big Dipper showed every sign of continuously expanding. The telescopes were definitely spawning. Several times, Lark found a batch of minuscule kaleidoscopes or a wicker basket full of jeweler’s magnifiers that could only have come about through some bizarre spyglass reproduction.

  She went over to the Grand Destiny for dinner some nights or to pick up groceries from the market. The dock was quiet, though on a twilight walk down its length, Lark had spotted a new boat, the Monstro of houseboats, docked at the very end. The lights were on inside, and she saw the glow of an enormous TV before she turned and walked back to the Big Dipper.

  It took three days to organize the telescopes on the front porch, and that didn’t count those up the side steps to the houseboat top. At first, she wiped each of them down before they went in the box, but then, anxious that this treatment might damage them, she gave up on cleaning at all. One she did break, a wobbly stargazer perched on the narrow window ledge. This accident shook her badly, the shame of the error radiating through her body with the sharp ache of a bruised rib. Still clutching her side, she’d scrapped the pieces mercilessly on the dock box along with the one rusted beyond recognition.

  Lark put them in numbered boxes that corresponded to the inventory she was writing out on graph paper, but she didn’t seal them, in case Cassie over at Fairchild’s Treasures wanted to appraise any of them. Finally, she couldn’t stand waiting a second longer, and Lark just marched right over to the antique shop without invitation, but the place was shut up with a sign that said closed for family. The sulking gray cat in the window wouldn’t tell her any different.

  She called Mom on the drive back to Echo, very briefly, just because she missed her, but she’d spared her the details. Dad didn’t get on to talk, and Mom had chatted weakly about home and work and a piece they’d both happened to catch on NPR. Mom hadn’t mentioned medical bills or health insurance battles even once. Lark had promised that everything was fine, that she had it in hand, and got off the phone. It was the extent of what they were capable of just then.

  After her attempt, Lark looked out over the lake on the walk back down to the dock. Her eyes lingered on the horizon, where the dam hovered. As she approached the boat, the telescopes turned to ogle her as usual—