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She woke up one morning with blood on her bedclothes. Two perfectly round spots on the sheets, one orbiting the other. A third on her nightdress. She stared into her lap and felt more curious than scared. Lily found her like that when she woke a few minutes later. She leaned over between their beds and looked herself.

What happened? she said.

I don’t know, said Evelyn.

Does it hurt?

Evelyn shifted where she sat.

I don’t think so, she said.

She went down into the kitchen without getting dressed. Her mother was washing muddy roots in the sink, and when she saw what had happened she let them drop into the brown water. She seemed not worried but sad. It was as if something she had foreseen and hoped to avoid had at last come upon the household, something she had not told either of her daughters about.

What is it? Evelyn asked.

It’s nothing to worry about, love. It’ll stop soon.

But why’s it happening?

It just means you’re getting older. It happens to all of us.

Will it happen to me? said Lily.

Yes, said their mother. If you ever decide to grow up.

That was the only explanation she ever gave them. She took Evelyn to her bedroom and showed her how she could keep from ruining her clothes.

Evelyn did not feel like she was getting older. Only a few days earlier Lily had informed her that it was Evelyn’s twelfth or perhaps thirteenth birthday, and Evelyn had not believed her. Lily had given her three boiled sweets she had found in the car glove box and a card with a pop-up snail that she’d made herself.

Evelyn went about her tasks in the garden as usual. She liked being busy; or rather, hated being idle and the thoughts that accompanied idleness. She enjoyed the work more than usual that day, feeling stronger and more accomplished in the secret knowledge that she was now unequivocally a young woman. She made a point of tending to her apple tree to mark the occasion. It had grown as strong as she and was heavy with blossom.

At midday Mama found her and said it was time she learned what to do with the beehives. It was as if she, too, wished to acknowledge her daughter’s womanhood, though not explicitly. When they made their way back to the house, her father was sitting in a deck chair on the gravel. He was shirtless and his eyes were closed. Next to the feet of the chair was something reddish in a squat glass tumbler. He and Mama did not speak, but there was little of note about that. Their father was silent most of the time now, though he wore the look of someone subjected to loud noises nobody else could hear.

The hives were seething that day. The bees’ droning was so deep it felt as if they had found their way through Evelyn’s ears and into her skull. She wanted to run away at first, but her mother held her hand tightly and maneuvered her in front of the hive as if she were some kind of votive offering. She removed one of the frames and showed it to Evelyn.

Can you see the queen? she said. The big one? There. She’s in charge. She’s the one that lays the eggs. And she encourages all the other bees to do their jobs, too. All these workers, they’re all lady bees. They’re the ones who build the hive and go looking for food and look after the little bees. And they’re all working together. You see? No one’s complaining that they’ve got too much work to do. You don’t get one bee trying to take more than she needs from the other bees. Everyone just does their bit.

She examined the frame and didn’t speak for a while.

What about the boy bees? Evelyn asked.

The males? Well. There aren’t very many of them. That’s one there. She pointed with her little finger. They stay in the hive for a while and they eat and eat, and then they leave the hive and have their wicked way with some other bees from another colony. All right for some, isn’t it?

Evelyn noticed her mother was looking past her ear toward Papa. He picked up his glass and drained the whole thing and then started to splutter. When she turned back, her mother was smiling, and the smile turned into a laugh, and then she couldn’t stop laughing and soon there were tears in her eyes.

What? Evelyn asked. What’s so funny?

But her mother wouldn’t say.