The work was quickly completed and just as the last math problem was solved, we heard a car door. The Cat’s Mother was home.

“I’m home!” she called out as she came through the door. “Let’s get on that homework!”

“We’re finished!” Hunter said.

“Yep! All done!” Tyler said.

She came into the room and saw me there.

“What are you doing here?” she said.

“I didn’t think it was a good idea to send them into an empty house,” I said. What had I done wrong?

“Oh, I see. So I canceled appointments for this afternoon to help the boys with homework and it’s already done. That’s just great.”

I had unintentionally overstepped the boundary, just the thing I wanted to avoid.

“I’m sorry, Sharon. You’re right. We should’ve waited for you. I apologize.”

I got up to leave.

“You know how to find the door, don’t you?” she said.

Jesus, I thought.

“Sure. See you boys later! By the way, I fed your cats.”

I had tried to sound cheery, but I was mortified. I don’t know why their homework being done should have made her that angry. She could take the boys to the playground. She could play a game with them. There were a million things she could have done with them, but she decided to be mad instead. Get mad, make everyone uncomfortable—I mean, what’s the point of that?

I stopped by my apiary to check the water pans and while I was there, I told the bees the story. I told them that something had to be done about Sharon and if they could think of something to let me know. The bees seemed to be gathering and returning to the pink hive. It was late afternoon and the better part of the day was long gone, but it seemed to be a bit early for them to call it quitting time. Maybe it was going to rain. Bees knew those things, and the inhabitants of the pink hive seemed to be more tuned in to the world than the others. Every hive had its own personality, just like families in their homes. Sometimes, you’d get a queen who was too aggressive, and then the hive followed suit. The only way to correct the problem was to replace the queen. Ideally, you wanted a queen who just laid her two thousand eggs a day and went peacefully and quietly into the night when it was time for the next queen. But the hive was like life everywhere. Imperfect and subject to change.

We still had plenty of daylight left. The closer we got to summer, the longer the days. Winter on the island could be kind of dreary, so I was happy for the extended days.