The History of Bees

Chapter 63 GEORGE

The great shakes. They were in me. For days. Morning, noon, night.

I struggled to hold a knife and fork. Emma saw it, but said nothing. Struggled to use tools, dropped the screwdriver on the floor, the saw swerved awkwardly.

I awoke with fear in my heart every single morning.

Woke up, went down and met him. He just glanced up at me and gave a little nod before diving down into his book again. But that was fine.

Because he wasn’t shaking.

He didn’t falter. Even when he was turning the pages of a book, it was done with confidence in his movements, calm and assured, the cup of coffee lifted with a steady hand. The footsteps towards the field, towards the hives, exactly the same length, his strides strong and solid against the ground.

And I followed behind him. At all times with this trembling in me.

But as I witnessed these strides of his across the field, the lifting he did with his legs, not with his back, bend, lift, put down, again and again, as I watched these movements, I gradually stopped shaking. Every day it became easier to hold a fork.

And then, while we were extracting honey, while the autumn sun was low and gentle in the sky, just as yellow as the drops we shook off the frames, I suddenly noticed something. They were gone. The shakes were gone.

I worked with calm, stable hands. Like him. Beside him.

The two of us now completely in sync.