The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Read Free Book Online

cried. He threw back his head and let out a forced, bitter laugh.
    ‘It’s—it’s not funny,’ I said. He lunged toward the bed then, pressing his fists into the mattress, bringing his face so close I could see the tiny holes where his whiskers grew. I slid backward, toward the pillows, shoving my back into the headboard.
    ‘Not funny?’ he yelled.
    ‘Not funny? Why, it’s the funniest goddamn thing I ever heard: you thinking your mother is your guardian angel.’
    He laughed again.
    ‘The woman could have cared less about you.’
    ‘That’s not true,’ I said.
    ‘It’s not.’
    ‘And how would you know?’ he said, still leaning toward me. A leftover smile pulled the corners of his mouth.
    ‘I hate you!’ I screamed. That stopped his smiling instantly. He stiffened.
    ‘Why, you little bitch,’ he said. The color faded from his lips. Suddenly I felt ice cold, as if something dangerous had slipped into the room. I looked toward the window and felt a tremor slide along my spine.
    ‘You listen to me,’ he said, his voice deadly calm.
    ‘The truth is, your sorry mother ran off and left you. The day she died, she’d come back to get her things, that’s all. You can hate me all you want, but she’s the one who left you.’
    The room turned absolutely silent. He brushed at something on his shirtfront, then walked to the door. After he left, I didn’t move except to trace the bars of light on the bed with my finger. The sound of his boots banging down the stairs drifted away, and I took the pillows from underneath the bedspread and placed them around me like I was making an inner tube that might keep me afloat. I could understand her leaving him. But leaving me? This would sink me forever. The bee jar sat on the bedside table, empty now. Sometime since this morning the bees had finally gotten around to flying off. I reached over and took the jar in my hands, and out came the tears I’d been holding on to, it seemed like for years. Your sorry mother ran off and left you. The day she died, she’d come back to get her things, that’s all. God and Jesus, you make him take it back. The memory settled over me. The suitcase on the floor. The way they’d fought. My shoulders began to shake in a strange, controllable way. I held the jar pressed between my breasts, hoping it would steady me, but I couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop crying, and it frightened me, as though I’d been struck by a car I hadn’t seen coming and was lying on the side of the road, trying to understand what had happened. I sat on the edge of the bed, replaying his words over and over. Each time there was a wrench in what felt like my heart. I don’t know how long I sat there feeling broken to pieces. I walked to the window and gazed out at the peach trees stretching halfway to North Carolina, the way they held up their leafy arms in gestures of pure beseeching. The rest was sky and air and lonely space. I looked down at the bee jar still clutched in my hand and saw a teaspoon of teardrops floating in the bottom. I unfastened the window screen and poured it out. The wind lifted it on her skirt tails and shook it over the blistered grass. How could she have left me? I stood there several minutes looking out on the world, trying to understand. Little birds were singing, so perfect. That’s when it came to me: What if my mother leaving wasn’t true? What if T. Ray had made it up to punish me? I felt almost dizzy with relief. That was it. That had to be it. I mean, my father was Thomas Edison when it came to inventing punishments. Once after I’d back-talked him, he’d told me my rabbit, Mademoiselle, had died, and I’d cried all night before I discovered her the next morning healthy as anything in her pen. He had to be making this up, too. Some things were not possible in this world. Children did not have two parents who refused to love them. One, maybe, but for pity’s sake, not two. It had to be like he’d said before: she