Denial set in. She resumed her prone position, changed the batteries in her television remote, and went back to shopping on QVC and HSN.

She also didn’t want to discuss my job at Publix. When I told her what I was doing she set her jaw into a lock and barely spoke to me for a few days. That was actually not such a bad thing. In fact, it was peaceful.

I’d gotten in the habit of saving coupons, buying whatever was on sale, and cooking more than we needed so that I could take a meal to the boys. If they couldn’t have a momma in their kitchen, they could have me bringing supper. One day, out of nowhere, Momma called me an idiot. After all, she could only be nice for so long. We argued.

“You’re making a fool out of yourself,” she said, “throwing yourself at that man.”

“I’m not throwing myself at anybody,” I said. “I’m doing something nice. This is what doing something nice looks like, Momma.”

“I’m telling you, Holly, I know men. At some point he’s going to feel insulted by all your casseroles and spaghettis. It will be like you think he needs charity or something.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. I honestly could not see Archie feeling like that.

“Just don’t be surprised.”

I told the bees what Momma said. I swear to you the pink hive buzzed in a way that sounded like they didn’t agree with Momma. It was like my pink hive had an opinion. I’m not exaggerating. Everyone who knows anything about bees knows that they know how to reach a consensus. For example, when it’s time for the older queen bee to be replaced, the worker bees know it. They build new queen cells, load them up with healthy pupae, and flood them with royal jelly. Or, they ball her, which is a term that does not have the naughty connotation that used to travel around with the expression. It’s more like a visit from the goon squad. To ball the queen, worker bees cluster all around her, causing her body temperature to rise to the point where she dies, which is bad enough. Anyway, crazy as it may sound, I felt as if my bees were on my side.

I was feeling pretty good about myself and my newfound culinary skills, maybe even a little superior, until the evening I brought them a chicken Divan casserole and Archie met me at the door.

“This has to stop,” he said.

“What?” I said and turned every color of red on the spectrum. I felt stung.

“It’s not like I can’t feed my children,” he said.

“Who said you couldn’t feed your children?” I said. Now my head broke a sweat.