I was still thinking about Evelyn’s visit when a shadow fell across the concrete floor of the bottling shed. My grandson David stood in the doorway, adjusting the brim of his blue baseball cap.
“Need some help around here, Grandma?” he asked.
“David,” I said, my heart lifting for a brief second before I saw the tight set of his jaw. “I thought you were busy up in Atlanta.”
“Had some free time,” he said, keeping his eyes on his boots. “I can wash jars, carry crates, whatever you need.”
He walked over to the stainless-steel holding tank and peered through the sight glass at the honey we had drained from the extractor that morning.
“This batch looks thin,” David said, pointing to the light, watery amber behind the glass.
“The bees must have found some late clover down by the creek,” I said, though I knew the creek pastures had been dry since August.
When Arthur’s sedan pulled back into the gravel driveway at half past five, I met him near the office steps.
“Arthur, the honey in the holding tank is too light,” I said, my thumb working against my palm again. “And Evelyn says the batch we bottled last week does not taste right.”
Arthur stopped, his car keys clinking in his hand. His face went tight, and his words came fast, the way he talked when he was pitching a new distributor in Macon.
“The weather changed the nectar flow, Mabel, it is as simple as that. We had that dry spell in September. You cannot expect every single jar to look like it came out of a textbook.”
He turned and walked toward the office, leaving me standing by the porch.
I walked back inside the empty bottling shed and picked up a wooden spoon, dipping it deep into the open vat.
