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Prologue

2019

The church reseht find in the , and inside the cool air is welcoust in the South, the te,In enerally don’t wear suits They’re uncomfortable and as a physician, I’ve learned that my patients respond better to me when I’m dressed more casually, as they tend to be

I’ I’ve known the bride for h I’h we’d spoken regularly for more than a year after she left New Bern, our relationship since then has been limited to a couple of texts every now and then, soated by her, sometimes by me We do, however, have an undeniable bond, one that has its roots in events that occurred years ago Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember the man I hen our paths first crossed, but isn’t that normal? Life endlessly offers us chances to set new directions and in the process we grow and change; e look in the rearview linizable

Soed—my name, for instance—but I’es of a new career, one I’d never considered in the first three decades of er play the instru fa time since I’ve seen any of theet to those parts later

Today, I’ht from Baltimore had been delayed and the line to pick up h I’m not the last to arrive, the church is more than half full and I find a seat in the third row fro my best to slip in unobserved The pews in front ofthe kind of hats you expect to find at the Kentucky Derby, extravagant confections of bows and flowers that goats ht makes me smile, a reminder that in the South, there are always moments when it’s possible to slip into a world that seems to exist nowhere else

As I continue to take in ht of flowers also makes me think about bees Bees have been part ofmemory They are re to me These days, I tend to ht iine—and I’ve come to believe that the bees take care of me in the same way they take care of everyone Without them, human life would nearly be ie part of our entire food supply

There’s so impossibly wonderful about that concept, that life as we know it can co its way from one plant to another It rand sche beehives also led me here, to this small-town church, far froood story—is also the story of events and circu a pair of old-ti chairs in front of an old mercantile store in North Carolina Most ih one was really just a girl at the time

I’m the first to notice that when others tell their stories, they tend to frame them in ways that make them the star I’ll probably fall into the same trap, but I’d like to offer the caveat that hout ard myself as no kind of hero

As for the ending of this story, I suppose this wedding is a coda of sorts Five years ago, I would have been hard-pressed to say whether the conclusion of these intertwining tales was a happy, tragic, or bittersweet one And now? Frankly, I’ whether the storyfashion pick up exactly where it left off

To understand what I mean, you’ll have to travel back in time with me, to revisit a world that despite all that has happened in the intervening years, still feels close enough to touch

Chapter 1

2014

I first noticed the girl walking past my house the day after I’d moved in Over the next month and a half, I saw her shuffle by a few ti time, neither of us said a word to each other

I suspected she was in her teens—soested she was struggling beneath the twin burdens of low self-esteem and irritation at the world—but at thirty-two I’d reached the age where it was al brown hair and wide-set eyes, the only thing I knew for sure about her was that she lived in the trailer park up the road and that she liked to walk Or more likely, she had to walk, because she didn’t own a car

The April skies were clear, the teh breeze to carry the perfuwoods and azaleas in the yard had roared into blooravel road that wound past randfather’s house just outside New Bern, North Carolina, a place I’d recently inherited

And I, Trevor Benson, convalescing physician and disabled veteran by profession, was shakingthe base of the front porch, la The proble quite when youelse that needed to be done…or whether fixing up the old place was even hile at all

The house—and I used the term loosely—wasn’t much by way of appearance and the years had taken their toll My grandfather built it hih he could build things to last, he didn’t have a lot of talent when it cale with porches on the front and back—two bedroo had faded to a grayish silver over the years, randfather’s hair The roof had been patched, air seeped through the s, and the kitchen floor slanted to the point that if liquid spilled, it became a tiny river that flowed to the door that led to the back porch I like to think it randfather, who’d lived by himself the last thirty years of his life

The property, however, was special It was a shade over six acres, with an aging, slightly tilting barn and a honey shed—where ly every flowering plant known toclover patches and wildflowers Froround-level fireworks display It was also situated on Brices Creek, where dark, brackish water flowed so slowly that it often reflected the sky like a undy and red and orange and yellohile the slowly fading rays pierced the curtain of Spanish moss draped over the tree branches

The honey bees loved the place, which had been randfather’s intent, since I’m pretty sure he loved bees more than people There were about twenty beehives on the property; he’d been a part-time apiarist all his life, and it often struck me that the hives were in better condition than either the house or the barn I’d checked on the hives a few tih it was still early in the season, I could tell the colonies were healthy