Honey Bee
Story published in The Saturday Evening Post.
Henry looked for a parking spot outside the fairgrounds, without any luck, and complained about the traffic to his wife Clarissa. She sat in the passenger seat of their teal Subaru with her eyes closed and feet flat on the floor. A white earbud glistened from her ear as she breathed steadily. In slowly. Out slowly. She didn’t acknowledge his grumbling, and her peaceful demeanor made him feel petty even though he knew he had every right to feel whatever he wanted. At least today. His mother had just died.
As he drove, Henry noticed the serpentine spine of a red and white roller coaster in the distance. Dread crawled up his back and over the crown of his head. Pushing against all those sticky bodies at an outdoor fair, the relentless sun turning his skin crab pink, catching whiffs of a smell that fluctuated between ground beef and excrement would be bad enough. But now the thought of getting wheeled about by several rides, a mashed turkey leg sloshing around in his gut, made the day seem an impossibility. Besides that, it was barely 10 a.m. and already in the low 90s. The sun was one of the many reasons he hated California. That unblinking eye stamped in the sky like a fiery god. He had left the state for college on the East Coast years ago, swapping the dry heat and sand-burnt hills for cotton skies and green foliage. His mother had remained his only thread to the Golden State once his father retreated to the Phoenix suburbs eight years ago with his fourth wife, Roselle. And now, with his mother dead, this last thread had been severed.
“What a circus,” Henry said, shaking his head.
“But isn’t that the point?” Clarissa turned to the backseat, her neon green visor casting a shadow over her face. “You two ready to have some fun?”
“I have to pee!” Danny screamed. His little sister Audrie followed up with a squeaky me too!
A Camry in front of them was attempting a three-point turn in the middle of the congested lane. Henry flared his hands from the wheel.
“Hun, calm down,” Clarissa said.
He sped around the car before it could box him out, jerking his family’s heads abruptly forward, and hoping the engine’s roar would fill the inconsiderate driver with shame.
“Henry!” Clarrisa’s composed afterglow was waning, which he took as a small victory.
Having recently gotten into a mindfulness kick, his wife had encouraged him to take it up since it might help him recognize and respond to his own emotions, especially when it came to his parents. But that only made it certain he would never try it. If it kept her busy, fine, but all that self-help junk certainly wasn’t worth his time and effort. Clarissa’s latest personal goal had been to view everything as a problem to be rephrased, reconsidered, and, ultimately, accepted. Nothing was apparently a problem because it was a damn problem. But this awful parking situation was, in his opinion, a problem. In fact, his agreeing to come here in the first place was too, even if it was his fault.
Continue reading this story in The Saturday Evening Post.