Summary
Mara returns to her decaying family home in Oakhaven to care for her father, a master beekeeper losing his memory to the slow "crystallization" of dementia. Faced with mountaining debts, a crumbling apiary, and her brother's distance, she must choose between the life she built in the city and the heavy, sticky responsibility of her heritage.
Through the grit of manual labor and the discovery of unsent letters, Mara stops trying to "fix" the incurable and learns to "huddle" with her family instead. The story concludes with the realization that while the past cannot be preserved forever, the heat of human connection is enough to survive the winter.
