Tricia wore her black dress

She couldn’t quite scrape all the dirt from under her fingernails

Did her best

Walked to the car

Her mother pleading from inside, begging her to hurry

“We’re in luck,” Tricia said

“There was enough shampoo”

“Well at least you look and smell almost new,” her mother said as she rolled her eyes

Tricia didn’t feel like herself

On the way inside a bee stung her arm and it started to welt

Inside the building it was dark

A lone lamp shown over a casket at the front of the room

A lifeless body was inside a cushioned tomb

Tricia walked beside her mother

They viewed the man inside

They both remembered when he was alive

Tricia’s mother – the younger years

Tricia herself – as a child outside the young man’s home, wondering when her mother would come out

The man was a beekeeper

Her arm itched and stung

Like that time when she was a little kid

She herself would have died

Her mother didn’t come out though she cried and cried

But for a boy – had it not been for him

He rushed to her aide and gave her medicine

When the adults came out he was gone again

Tricia looked away to the art on the wall

She stepped out of her reverie

She saw him standing there, in his black suit and tie, taller, no longer just a memory

Her body felt hot, her heart raced

Like that time before

She felt trapped in there, so started to pace

He faded like her vision

She woke up in a garden

Serene

Like a dream

She saw him sitting on a bench, watching her

She got up and made her way to him

Hoping to embrace an old friend

For she thought it was like that time before

When he’d saved her with epinephrine

But out of nowhere her mother came at her with a sword

She didn’t even see it, but he did

He anticipated it

The mother fell into the pit surrounding where Tricia stood

He’d dug it before the mother came

He knew if she fell in, it would leave her lame

He walked to Tricia and grabbed her hand

“No need for panic attacks,” he told her

He walked her down a garden path

Azalea bushes in row, along the lake

He told her, “I’ll take you to a special place”

They climbed into his pick-up truck, an old one, and drove far

Tricia smiled and hugged her friend

She said, “You’ve saved my life twice so far,”

He smiled and said, “let the adventure begin.”

He held her dirty-fingernailed hand

And smelled her hair

He protected her, she was his prize

To the mother and to the beekeeper, a thorn in the side

He hated to watch her hurt

Always saw how the beekeeper lurked and how her mother smirked

For so long he was too small to do anything

But no longer

He got stronger

The beekeeper’s casket in the wake, the mother in the pit

The road was bright

He was courageous, she was at peace

They drove off into the night