Deena Goldstone - Tell Me One Thing

“And after you break it up as much as you can, we’ll pour the whole mess into the strainer and slowly, without us having to do a thing, only the honey will seep out through the strainer and drain into the bucket. And then we turn on the spigot and eat it!” They grin at each other like the coconspirators they are, and Max hands her the scraper.

Tentatively at first, Maggie pushes the metal against the delicate comb and is amazed to see honey spurt out in a golden ribbon. She looks up at Max, who stands close by watching. There’s wonderment on her face and he laughs. “Yep, pretty amazing. Keep on going. We’ve got a lot of honey to squeeze out.”

The afternoon is gentle — a soft breeze, the sounds of traffic a distant hum, the house empty and waiting because Lucia is at Dr. Greenstein’s and Bernadette is at the market. To Maggie it feels like she and Max are sharing something secret, something magical. Only them, only the two of them. This is as safe as she feels these days — out here in the backyard with Max and the bees. It is the kindness of Max and his complete lack of expectation. He doesn’t need her to talk. He’s fine with her just as she is, which is why Maggie is able to murmur, without looking at him, “Where’s my daddy?” It’s a whisper, just as Dr. Greenstein said, no more substantial than the air rustling the palm fronds, but Max hears it and he makes sure he doesn’t startle.

Maggie’s eyes are downcast. She concentrates on her task, her brow furrowed, pushing and poking at the combs and releasing the luscious honey. Did he really hear what he thought he heard? He answers it anyway.

“In Riverside, at the apartment there.”

“Why doesn’t he come?” And this time she looks up at Max, and her total bewilderment, her helplessness, breaks his heart. What can he say?

“Your mommy and daddy are working that out” is what he finally comes up with, even though he knows it’s not satisfactory in the least. More evasion, he knows, and then a flicker of anger within him that he’s being put in this situation — having to dish up half-truths to a desperate child.

Her eyes still searching his, Maggie pleads with him, “Don’t tell. Promise.” And he knows she means, Don’t tell about my talking , and all he can do is promise. He nods solemnly and she is comforted. She believes him.

Later in the afternoon, as Max and Maggie are finishing up by carefully filling sterilized bottles with the strained honey, Lucia watches from the kitchen window. She’s helping Bernadette prepare dinner, but her thoughts are on her child and the talk she had earlier with Dr. Greenstein.

“The only time she seems happy is when she’s with Max.”

Bernadette, stirring spaghetti sauce on the stove, shrugs. “He has the same effect on me.” But Lucia hasn’t heard her. She’s still staring out the window, watching, the silverware in her hands forgotten.

“Do you want to put that on the table?” Bernadette says, hoping her voice doesn’t betray the irritation she feels. Lucia is so passive. Lucia drifts. Lucia could be here for a very long time. And then, immediately, Bernadette feels guilty.

Lucia turns away from the window and begins to set the table. “That doctor basically told me I’m a terrible mother for taking Maggie away from her father.”

“Oh, Lucia, I’m sure she didn’t say that. Children survive when their parents split up.”

“Apparently mine isn’t.”

Bernadette carries the heavy spaghetti pot to the sink and drains the pasta into a colander, the steam rising in a cloud to envelop her head. She has no idea what to say to that statement.

“Richard agrees with her. Every text is about what a bad mother I’ve become.”

Bernadette is exhausted by it all. By the spikes of emotion, the endless conversations about Maggie, whom she’s come to love, and Richard, who is driving her crazy because he won’t stop calling, and now, here they are with Bernadette having to reassure Lucia that she’s not a terrible mother. It’s all too much. Nearly six weeks of it all with no end in sight.

And then Maggie and Max are in the kitchen, Maggie holding out a shining, golden jar of honey to place in Bernadette’s hands with an equally shining smile on her tiny face, and Bernadette’s heart melts. Anything, she’d do anything for this little girl.

MAX IS UNUSUALLY QUIET AT DINNER. He is wrestling with his conscience, with his pledge not to tell. Maggie watches his every move, reminding him with her steady gaze what he has promised.

Lucia is quiet also. There is so much she is trying to understand from her afternoon session with Dr. Greenstein.

So it is left to Bernadette to fill up the dead air. She babbles on about the honey and what she’s going to make with it — chicken nuggets with a honey-mustard sauce, which she assures Maggie will be “nothing like those awful things you get at McDonald’s. And maybe we’ll have honey-cornbread muffins to go with them and then honey-glazed carrots on the side. How does that sound?”

No one answers but Max. “Sounds like a lot of honey.”

“Well, in that case, we could have a honey-baked ham and honey-whipped sweet potatoes and a honey-vanilla pound cake for dessert.” Bernadette rolls her eyes and clutches her chest. “Oh my God, honey overload,” and she falls back in her chair as if she’s been felled by honey and Maggie giggles.

There. That’s what Bernadette was going for, and she and Max exchange a look. He’s grateful to her and she’s simply glad Maggie laughed. Lucia is lost in her own thoughts, Maggie pressed up against her, thigh to thigh, arm to arm.

WITH THE TURNING OF AUGUST, the heat comes. Usually the beach communities are spared the truly hot weather, but at least once a summer there’s a period when the inland areas are in the hundreds and the beach communities get up into the nineties. Everyone complains. No one has air conditioning because, after all, they’re at the beach and it’s always cool there.

The first few days are manageable, but this particular heat wave extends into its second week. The hot air just sits there like a lid, in a holding pattern over the basin that is the Southland, no morning or evening overcast to cool things down. No winds to bring in the clouds. Just the pressure cooker of dry, scalding heat that cracks the skin and parches the throat. It’s when people remember that the Los Angeles area was carved out of a desert and everyone is irritable.

Bernadette tries to chalk up her impatience to the weather, but she knows better. Lucia hasn’t made the slightest move. Now that Maggie is seeing Dr. Greenstein, it seems to have paralyzed Lucia further, as if Lucia has to wait until the doctor “fixes” Maggie before they can move on.

Bernadette doesn’t think that’s going to happen — either scenario. Dr. Greenstein isn’t going to effect a miracle cure, and even if she did, Bernadette can’t see Lucia marshaling the resources to get herself a job, an apartment, a school for Maggie who is supposed to be starting kindergarten at the beginning of September.

What to do? What would be helpful? What would be kind? What would get them out of Max’s house? Bernadette lies awake for many hot August nights staring at the ceiling trying to answer those questions. Max lies next to her, awake as well. Bernadette assumes it’s the heat, but Max is wrestling with an even harder question — should he tell?

Of course he promised Maggie he’d keep her secret, but she’s a child in trouble. Doesn’t his responsibility to help her supersede his promise? Shouldn’t Lucia know how Maggie longs for Richard? But if he divulged her secret, what would that do to her sense of trust, rent as it has been by her parents’ separation?

Max has waited, pinning his hopes on Dr. Greenstein, but it doesn’t seem like she’s been able to work her magic with this child.