Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

BRIANNA AND ROGER took the sticky cups, mixing bowl, spoon, and milk pitcher outside to rinse, and I sat down beside Jamie on a large sack of dried beans to gloat over my Merck Manual for a few minutes. He was turning Frank’s book over in his hands with a ginger air indicating that he thought it might explode, but put it aside and smiled when he saw me fondling the blue pebbled cover of my new baby.

“D’ye mean to read it through from beginning to end, like the Bible?” he asked. “Or will ye just wait ’til someone comes to ye with blue spots and look that up?”

“Oh, both,” I assured him, weighing the chunky little book in my hand. “It may have new treatments to suggest for things I recognize—but it undoubtedly describes things I’ve never seen or heard of, too.”

“May I see it again?” He held out a hand, and I carefully laid the book in it. He opened it at random, read … “Trypanosomiasis.” His eyebrows rose. “Can ye do anything about trypanosomiasis, Sassenach?”

“Well, no,” I admitted. “But—on the off chance that I should encounter trypanosomiasis, at least I’d know what it was, and that might save the patient from being subjected to an ineffective or dangerous treatment.”

“Aye, and give him time to write his will and summon a priest, too,” he said, closing the book and handing it back.

“Mm,” I said, not really wanting to dwell on the possibility—well, the dead certainty, in fact—of diagnosing fatal conditions I couldn’t treat. “What about your books? Do they look interesting?” I nodded toward the stack of thick paperbacks, and his face lit up. He picked up the first volume and riffled the pages, slowly, then turned back to the first page and read in a husky voice:

“Concerning Hobbits. This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history.”

“That’s just the Prologue,” I assured him. “You could skip that, if you like.”

He shook his head, eyes fixed on the page, smiling.

“If the author thought it was worth his writing it down, then it’s worth my reading it. I dinna mean to miss a single word.”

A sharp pang struck me then, seeing the reverential way in which he handled the book, turning over pages with a delicate forefinger. A book—any book—had a meaning well beyond its contents for a man who’d lived years at a time with little or no access to the printed word, and only the memory of stories to provide him and his companions escape from desperate circumstances.

“Have ye read these, Sassenach?” he asked, looking up.

“No, though I’ve read The Hobbit, by the same author. Bree and I read that one together when she was in the sixth grade—about twelve years old, I mean.”

“Ah. So ye wouldna say these are lewd books?”

“What? No, not at all,” I said, laughing. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Nothing, from the cover—I’ve never seen so much printing on the outside of a book—but ye canna tell, can ye?” He closed the book with obvious reluctance. “I was thinking, we might read these in the evenings, maybe everyone taking it in turn to read a chapter. Jem and Germain are old enough to manage it. D’ye think Frances can read?”

“I know she can. Her sister taught her, she said.” I rose and came over to him, leaning against his shoulder to look at The Fellowship of the Ring. “That’s a wonderful idea.” We had done that with Jenny and Ian during the brief months of our early marriage spent at Lallybroch: passed firelit hours of peace and happiness in the evenings while one person or another read aloud and the others knitted stockings or mended clothes or small bits of furniture. The rosy vision of such evenings here, our own family in our own home, made my heart glow in my chest.

He made a low Scottish noise indicating content and set the book down, next to the hardcover book Bree had brought for herself. Frank’s book. My already tenderized heart squeezed a little, at once happy and sad that she had brought it to remember him, to bring him with her into this new life.

Jamie saw me looking at the book and made another Scottish noise, this one indicating cautious interest. I nodded at The Soul of a Rebel. “Are you going to read that one?”

“I dinna ken,” he admitted, glancing at it. “Have you read it, Sassenach?”

“No.” I felt a small qualm at the admission. The fact was that while I’d read all of Frank’s articles, books, and essays during what I thought of as our first marriage, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to read any of the books he’d written during our second go, save a brief look at one that dealt with the aftermath of Culloden, when I began to search for the men of Lallybroch.

“This one was published after I … came back,” I said, my throat tight. “It was the last book he wrote. I’ve not even seen it before.” I wondered, for an instant, whether Bree had picked that one because the photograph of Frank on it was what he’d looked like the last time she saw him, or whether she’d chosen it mostly because of the title.