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

gone. My heart did flip-flops. Please, God. I didn’t mean to treat her like a pet dog. I was trying to save her. That’s all. Fumbling to get my shoes on, I felt the same old grief I’d known in church every single Mother’s Day. Mother, forgive. Rosaleen, where are you? I gathered up my bag and ran along the creek toward the bridge, hardly aware I was crying. Tripping over a dead limb, I sprawled through the darkness and didn’t bother to get up. I could picture Rosaleen miles from here, tearing down the highway, mumbling, Shitbucket, damnfoolgirl. Looking up, I noticed that the tree I’d fallen beneath was practically bald. Only little bits of green here and there, and lots of gray moss dangling to the ground. Even in the dark I could see that it was dying, and doing it alone in the middle of all these unconcerned pines. That was the absolute way of things. Loss takes up inside of everything sooner or later and eats right through it. Humming drifted out of the night. It wasn’t a gospel tune exactly, but it carried all the personality of one. I followed the sound and found Rosaleen in the middle of the creek, not a stitch of clothes on her body. Water beaded across her shoulders, shining like drops of milk, and her breasts swayed in the currents. It was the kind of vision you never really get over. I couldn’t help it, I wanted to go and lick the milk beads from her shoulders. I opened my mouth. I wanted something. Something, I didn’t know what. Mother, forgive. That’s all I could feel. That old longing spread under me like a great lap, holding me tight. Off came my shoes, my shorts, my top. I hesitated with my underpants, then worked them off, too. The water felt like a glacier melting against my legs. I must have gasped at the iciness, because Rosaleen looked up and seeing me come naked through the water, started to laugh.
    ‘Look at you strutting out here. Jiggle-tit and all.’
    I eased down beside her, suspending my breath at the water’s sting.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
    ‘I know,’ she said.
    ‘Me, too.’
    She reached over and patted the roundness of my knee like it was biscuit dough. Thanks to the moon, I could see clear down to the creek bottom, all the way to a carpet of pebbles. I picked one up—reddish, round, a smooth water heart. I popped it into my mouth, sucking for whatever marrow was inside it. Leaning back on my elbows, I slid down till the water sealed over my head. I held my breath and listened to the scratch of river against my ears, sinking as far as I could into that shimmering, dark world. But I was thinking about a suitcase on the floor, about a face I could never quite see, about the sweet smell of cold cream.

Chapter Three
New beekeepers are told that the way to find the elusive queen is by first locating her circle of attendants.
—The Queen Must Die: And Other Affairs of Bees and Men
    I love Thoreau best. Mrs. Henry made us read portions of Walden Pond, and afterward I’d had fantasies of going to a private garden where T. Ray would never find me. I started appreciating Mother Nature, what she’d done with the world. In my mind she looked like Eleanor Roo- sevelt. I thought about her the next morning when I woke beside the creek in a bed of kudzu vines. A barge of mist floated along the water, and dragonflies, iridescent blue ones, darted back and forth like they were stitching up the air. It was such a pretty sight for a second I forgot the heavy feeling I’d carried since T. Ray had told me about my mother. Instead I was at Walden Pond. Day one of my new life, I said to myself. That’s what this is. Rosaleen slept with her mouth open and a long piece of drool hanging from her bottom lip. I could tell by the way her eyes rolled under her lids she was watching the silver screen where dreams come and go. Her swollen face looked better, but in the bright of day I noticed purple bruises on her arms and legs as well. Neither one of us had a watch on, but going by the sun