Ronan O’Malley is 53, a third-generation beekeeper who runs 42 hives scattered across the western North Carolina mountains, selling raw sourwood and wildflower honey every Saturday at the Asheville River Arts District farmers market. His hands are perpetually sticky with sap and beeswax, his forearms crisscrossed with faint, faded bee sting scars. His biggest flaw is that he’s spent the eight years since his wife passed walled off, convinced any new connection, even a casual coffee, is a betrayal of the life they built together. He talks only when he has to, keeps his interactions with customers tight, no small talk, no personal questions, no lingering eye contact.
The June afternoon sticks to his skin like melted candy, 92 degrees with a thick, clover-scented humidity hanging low over the market stalls. Most vendors are packing up by 2 p.m., crates clattering, tarps flapping, the line for the elote truck dwindling to a single group of hiking teens in neon tank tops. Ronan is wiping a streak of honey off the edge of his folding table when she steps up, same as she does every week, the hem of her loose linen dress brushing the scuffed toe of his work boot.
Her name is Maeve, he learned two months back, part-time elementary school art teacher who sells hand-painted ceramic mugs two stalls over. She always asks for the smallest jar of sourwood, says she stirs it into her chamomile tea every night before bed. Today she’s holding a mason jar of neon-pink strawberry preserves, the lid twisted tight, a smudge of dirt on her left cheek from hauling crates of mugs that morning. She holds the jar out, and her wrist brushes his when he reaches to take it, his skin tingling where her knuckles graze his. He spots a tiny, faded bee tattoo on the soft skin of her inner wrist, the exact same design his wife got inked on her 30th birthday, and his throat goes tight.
He wants to step back, to shut down, to tell her he doesn’t do trades, that cash only is his rule, but he doesn’t. She smells like jasmine perfume and ripe strawberries, her eyes crinkling at the corners when she smiles, and the guilt hits him sharp, right in the chest, like he’s doing something wrong just standing this close to her. She says she’s got a wild hive that moved into the oak in her backyard three weeks prior, her neighbors are threatening to call an exterminator, and she didn’t know who else to ask. He almost says no, almost makes up an excuse about checking hives at sundown, but he nods before he can stop himself.
Her house is ten minutes outside the city, down a rutted dirt road lined with blackberry bushes, the sun hanging low enough that the light turns golden when it filters through the trees. The hive is tucked in a crook of the oak 12 feet up, the low, steady hum of the bees carrying down to where they stand shoulder to shoulder, so close he can feel the heat of her arm through his thin cotton tee. He tells her the hive is docile, that they won’t bother anyone if no one messes with the tree, and she laughs, soft, says she already knew that. She just wanted an excuse to ask him to come over, she admits, says she’s noticed he never talks to anyone at the market, looks like he’s carrying the whole weight of the mountains on his shoulders.
The confession hangs between them for a beat, crickets chirping in the grass, a woodpecker tapping somewhere deeper in the woods. He tells her about his wife, about how they built the bee business together, about how he’d stopped letting anyone get close because he thought it meant he was forgetting her. She doesn’t say anything at first, just hands him a glass of iced sweet tea, their fingers brushing when he takes it, and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, doesn’t feel the sharp twist of guilt he expected.
They sit on her back porch steps for an hour and a half, passing the jar of strawberry preserves back and forth, eating it off saltine crackers, talking about bees, about her third grade art students, about the way the mountains look purple right before a thunderstorm. Fireflies start blinking on in the grass at their feet, the air cooling off just enough that a chill runs up his arms, and she leans over to hand him a frayed knit blanket from the porch swing. Her thumb brushes the streak of beeswax he still has on his jaw when she pulls back, lingering for half a second, and he doesn’t move.
When she asks if he wants to stay for dinner, he nods before she finishes the question.
