“Yes.”
“Don’t. You’re making it too easy for her.”
After a moment, “I see.”
“And never underestimate the courage it will take your child to begin speaking again. Not speaking reinforces itself with almost no effort. To break free and speak … well, that is an act of bravery.”
“But she’ll do it, won’t she?”
“We certainly hope so.”
That answer isn’t at all satisfactory to Lucia.
MAGGIE WATCHES MAX TAKE A LARGE KNIFE and cut around the edges of the honeycomb frame. “We’re using the crush-and-strain method,” he tells her. They’re standing in the backyard, both wearing their pith helmets with veil. Max is making sure as he cuts that the honeycomb falls into a large white bucket, the kind painters use.
He’s already explained what the other white bucket, which they’ve washed and is now waiting, will be used for. It looks exactly like the first one, only it has a spigot at the bottom. And Max has placed a large, snug-fitting strainer across the top.
“There’s something called an extractor,” Max explains as he takes up the second frame and begins cutting through the waxy comb, “which is a big stainless-steel bucket with a crank on top. You put the whole frame in and the extractor spins it around and flings the honey out, but I don’t have one of those yet. It’s probably a whole lot easier, but I think this will work fine.” Maggie thinks whatever Max does will work out fine. Max has taken up residence in a small piece of her empty heart, aching for Richard’s presence.
After Max has cut the comb from the third frame, he shows Maggie a tool that looks like a paint scraper and tells her it’s her turn. “Here’s the ‘crush’ part. We need to break up the comb we’ve got in the bucket so that the honey can get out. Do you think you can do it?” Maggie nods, eager to try. “Mash away. Like this.” And Max shows her how to jab and press on the comb so that the lovely honey squirts out.
“And after you break it up as much as you can, we’ll pour the whole mess into the strainer and slowly, without us having to do a thing, only the honey will seep out through the strainer and drain into the bucket. And then we turn on the spigot and eat it!” They grin at each other like the coconspirators they are, and Max hands her the scraper.
Tentatively at first, Maggie pushes the metal against the delicate comb and is amazed to see honey spurt out in a golden ribbon. She looks up at Max, who stands close by watching. There’s wonderment on her face and he laughs. “Yep, pretty amazing. Keep on going. We’ve got a lot of honey to squeeze out.”
The afternoon is gentle — a soft breeze, the sounds of traffic a distant hum, the house empty and waiting because Lucia is at Dr. Greenstein’s and Bernadette is at the market. To Maggie it feels like she and Max are sharing something secret, something magical. Only them, only the two of them. This is as safe as she feels these days — out here in the backyard with Max and the bees. It is the kindness of Max and his complete lack of expectation. He doesn’t need her to talk. He’s fine with her just as she is, which is why Maggie is able to murmur, without looking at him, “Where’s my daddy?” It’s a whisper, just as Dr. Greenstein said, no more substantial than the air rustling the palm fronds, but Max hears it and he makes sure he doesn’t startle.
Maggie’s eyes are downcast. She concentrates on her task, her brow furrowed, pushing and poking at the combs and releasing the luscious honey. Did he really hear what he thought he heard? He answers it anyway.
“In Riverside, at the apartment there.”
“Why doesn’t he come?” And this time she looks up at Max, and her total bewilderment, her helplessness, breaks his heart. What can he say?
“Your mommy and daddy are working that out” is what he finally comes up with, even though he knows it’s not satisfactory in the least. More evasion, he knows, and then a flicker of anger within him that he’s being put in this situation — having to dish up half-truths to a desperate child.
Her eyes still searching his, Maggie pleads with him, “Don’t tell. Promise.” And he knows she means, Don’t tell about my talking, and all he can do is promise. He nods solemnly and she is comforted. She believes him.
Later in the afternoon, as Max and Maggie are finishing up by carefully filling sterilized bottles with the strained honey, Lucia watches from the kitchen window. She’s helping Bernadette prepare dinner, but her thoughts are on her child and the talk she had earlier with Dr. Greenstein.
“The only time she seems happy is when she’s with Max.”
Bernadette, stirring spaghetti sauce on the stove, shrugs. “He has the same effect on me.” But Lucia hasn’t heard her. She’s still staring out the window, watching, the silverware in her hands forgotten.
“Do you want to put that on the table?” Bernadette says, hoping her voice doesn’t betray the irritation she feels. Lucia is so passive. Lucia drifts. Lucia could be here for a very long time. And then, immediately, Bernadette feels guilty.
Lucia turns away from the window and begins to set the table. “That doctor basically told me I’m a terrible mother for taking Maggie away from her father.”
“Oh, Lucia, I’m sure she didn’t say that. Children survive when their parents split up.”
“Apparently mine isn’t.”
Bernadette carries the heavy spaghetti pot to the sink and drains the pasta into a colander, the steam rising in a cloud to envelop her head. She has no idea what to say to that statement.
“Richard agrees with her. Every text is about what a bad mother I’ve become.”
Bernadette is exhausted by it all. By the spikes of emotion, the endless conversations about Maggie, whom she’s come to love, and Richard, who is driving her crazy because he won’t stop calling, and now, here they are with Bernadette having to reassure Lucia that she’s not a terrible mother. It’s all too much. Nearly six weeks of it all with no end in sight.
And then Maggie and Max are in the kitchen, Maggie holding out a shining, golden jar of honey to place in Bernadette’s hands with an equally shining smile on her tiny face, and Bernadette’s heart melts. Anything, she’d do anything for this little girl.
MAX IS UNUSUALLY QUIET AT DINNER. He is wrestling with his conscience, with his pledge not to tell. Maggie watches his every move, reminding him with her steady gaze what he has promised.
Lucia is quiet also. There is so much she is trying to understand from her afternoon session with Dr. Greenstein.
So it is left to Bernadette to fill up the dead air. She babbles on about the honey and what she’s going to make with it — chicken nuggets with a honey-mustard sauce, which she assures Maggie will be “nothing like those awful things you get at McDonald’s. And maybe we’ll have honey-cornbread muffins to go with them and then honey-glazed carrots on the side. How does that sound?”
No one answers but Max. “Sounds like a lot of honey.”
“Well, in that case, we could have a honey-baked ham and honey-whipped sweet potatoes and a honey-vanilla pound cake for dessert.” Bernadette rolls her eyes and clutches her chest. “Oh my God, honey overload,” and she falls back in her chair as if she’s been felled by honey and Maggie giggles.
There. That’s what Bernadette was going for, and she and Max exchange a look. He’s grateful to her and she’s simply glad Maggie laughed. Lucia is lost in her own thoughts, Maggie pressed up against her, thigh to thigh, arm to arm.
WITH THE TURNING OF AUGUST, the heat comes. Usually the beach communities are spared the truly hot weather, but at least once a summer there’s a period when the inland areas are in the hundreds and the beach communities get up into the nineties. Everyone complains. No one has air conditioning because, after all, they’re at the beach and it’s always cool there.