I made myself a cup of hot tea with a big dollop of my honey. Since I’d added a teaspoon to my daily diet in one way or another, my allergies seemed improved. It was just another advantage of beekeeping. I started keeping bees because I loved the idea of other universes. Much like gardening, when you tend beehives, hours can pass without you realizing it. My gardens nourished my bees and my bees propagated my gardens and they both fed me in some spiritual way. I hadn’t yet figured out the process of fermenting honey to make mead, but at that moment I wished I had. A big mug of mead might have been just the thing I needed. Mead, by the way, is the oldest known alcoholic drink we know of.

I stared out the window over the sink and thought about Archie. It was upsetting. The offer of money made my intentions feel cheap. I really did need to get my head out of the clouds and accept the fact that Archie did not have romantic feelings for me. I knew he meant well. And it wasn’t like I was rolling in money, either. Surely, he realized that and that was why he offered to pay me. If I was going to continue to cook for them, I’d need a calculator to figure out their portion of the food cost. Or I’d just charge him something that seemed fair. By the time I’d finished my tea, I made myself understand why he’d said what he said, but Lord, he had been so abrupt. Men could be like that. Maybe I’d be better off with the UPS man. A gentler and kinder soul, to be sure, but he had thought I was weird because I warned him about getting a flat tire. What was I supposed to do? Not tell him? But the butcher at Publix was pretty cute. I’d have to check his hand for a wedding ring.

The next day was my day to volunteer at the library. I always looked forward to that. For some reason, I’d been asked to do crafts with the children, which of course suited me just fine. Since we were approaching spring, even though half the time it felt like summer, I was thinking about having the children make flowers out of felt by wrapping precut petals and leaves around the ends of pencils and gluing them in place. It was a simple craft that even young children could do, and the pencils would make a nice Easter gift for their mothers or just for them to keep.