By Lynn Nicholas

Claire’s eyes were vacant; unblinking and watchful. It saddened me to see her once-vibrant face so expressionless. At least today she wasn’t fearful, ready to spring away or strike out.

“I’ve reached the equinox of my life.” Claire swept long, graying bangs to one side and leaned closer to my lawn chair.

I smiled, but didn’t respond. I waited for the right statement, the right moment, to pose a question. I often fell back on our years of professional collaboration and friendship to get a read on Claire.

“I’m neither old nor young, but balanced somewhere in the middle,” she said. “I wonder if I’m at a crossroads or at the entrance to a hedgerow maze, with no way out?”

I remained quiet, but attentive. I wanted Claire to freely give voice to this mix of reality and imaginings. Her once brilliant mind was still active, but now it roamed through a spiral dance rather than staying on task with its old laser-point intensity. I hated to see her stumble down the same rabbit hole as her mathematician father.

Claire settled back into silence. She glanced down at her ringless hands, stretching and relaxing her fingers. It was in her best interest, at least for now, to keep her jewelry in the safety deposit box. She worried her right thumb over the left-hand thumb nail for several seconds, lost in her thoughts.

Like the sudden revving of an idling engine, she sat straight up and pointed toward the far end of the garden.

“Do you see the rosemary? That dark-green, compact shrub covered with small, blue blossoms.” Claire’s voice was almost animated. “Look!” she said, turning back toward me. “Look closely and you’ll see movement. Can you see all the bees at work? Did you know that the bee is the only living being that is not a carrier of any type of pathogen, regardless of whether it is a fungus, a virus, or a bacterium?”

I held my breath. This was one of those rare, magical moments when the old Claire surfaced. It was bittersweet. How much more might this brilliant scientist have accomplished if trauma hadn’t triggered the latent psychosis, ending her career?

Claire continued to speak, but lowered her voice to a whisper. “Did you also know that the exact same bee-DNA sequence yields three distinctly different types of bees: the workers, the drones, and the queen?” Her eyes focused on me again, this time searching, demanding an answer.

“That’s a fascinating bit of science,” I said, careful to match her tone and demeanor. I moved closer, just enough to confirm my full attention. “You seem to know a lot about bees, Claire. Can you tell me more?”

“A bee stung me once.” Claire turned away and fixed her gaze at some point far across the expanse of garden. “I was in second grade. We were on a field trip. I captured a bee with my hand and held it in my fist. I wanted to get a closer look. The bee stung me. Hard. My hand swelled up, and I had to get a shot. It hurt.” Tears welled. She was eight years old again. “I understand how that bee felt now.”

I was conditioned to her abrupt changes of mood and demeanor, but sometimes they still shook me to my core. I took a grounding breath to mentally regroup.

Claire withdrew into herself, her body visibly collapsing. After the slightest shake of her head, she looked down at her sandaled feet.

“How do you think the bee felt when you held it in your closed fist?”

“Trapped. Scared. Like it would never be free again. It’s programmed by its DNA, you know. A worker bee’s purpose is to fly from flower to flower, to do its work. Work is important.”

“Is that how you feel, Claire? Trapped? And work, do you miss your work?”

She busied herself examining the back of one hand, tracing prominent bluish veins with an index finger. She turned her wrist over, exposing the scars that were finally fading to thin, white lines.

“Please, how old am I? Can you tell me? I think I’m in my forties, but…” Claire dropped her hands into her lap and again turned toward me, this time clearly expecting an answer.

I hesitated. Was she strong enough? “Claire, last year you celebrated your sixtieth birthday.”

Her hands fisted.

“We found you outside, bleeding, holding shards of glass from a smashed champagne bottle.” It was painful to remember her saying, over and over, ‘I have to bleed out the bad.’ “After that night, you came to live here.”

She lowered her head—the calm before the storm. She began to moan, low and deep.

“Claire?” I touched her shoulder. She unfurled a hand, ready to strike if need be. She began to stamp her feet and sway from side to side.

I signaled for the orderly, who was standing at the ready a few feet away.

“Please take Claire inside, Samuel. I think she’s had enough for today.”

“Certainly, Dr. Hanks.”

Samuel swooped in and expertly administered a sedative. He transferred Claire to the wheelchair and headed up the gravel path to the sanitorium.

I saved today’s notes on Claire’s unusual presentation of DNA-linked psychosis. She was my most heartbreaking research case, our long-standing relationship aside. Claire had more in common with her beloved bees than she would ever know.