Backwater

by Joan Bauer

  I held the carving of my dad up to a shaft of setting sunlight breaking through the trees.

  He looked like some character out of Huckleberry Finn with his scruffy, patched pants and his all-American boyish goodness.

  “Why do you think he changed, Aunt Jo?”

  “I think he had to for our father to accept him.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “No, it’s not. But you’ve got to understand, Ivy. Our father was raised that way, too, and his father before him, and down through the generations.”

  She kept walking; I stayed where I was.

  A bolt of fear went through me.

  I’m not going to lose the things that give me joy so my father will accept me!

  I started running back to the cabin, at least I hoped it was the way back. I ran past briers and too many trees. Mud and snow clung to my boots, forest muck splattered my thermal pants. Malachi jumped from behind an evergreen, yellow eyes staring with meat-eating malevolence.

  Cultivate peace.

  Yeah, right.

  I heard Jo calling me, but I didn’t stop. I ran faster.

  The sky filled with clouds. I was surrounded by cloned trees and far from the suburbs where we had street signs and maps. There were no markers in this stupid woods.

  I was lost. I started to cry.

  “Jo!” I shouted to the air. “I’m here!”

  Nothing.

  “Aunt Jo!”

  My heart was pounding in my chest and I tried to steady it, but when you are a person who worries about everything, something like this is very likely to push you over the edge.

  “Jo!” A long, anguished cry.

  Trees creaked and rustled, a swooshing wind swept branches in the air. It was getting darker; soon I wouldn’t be able to see anything.

  “There you are.”

  Jo walked toward me.

  “To orient you, that’s the ranger station across the lake. Quickest way to it is to walk across it when the lake is frozen solid. Otherwise you have to go two miles north to pick up the trail.”

  She studied me. I brushed tears from my face.

  “Ivy, your father and I were very close once. I know that he doesn’t understand me anymore, and it’s been so long since I’ve seen him that I can’t say that I understand him, either. I keep my love for him alive through my carving. I’m sorry it made you uncomfortable.”

  I held the carving tightly. I didn’t know what to say.

  “We need some rules,” she continued. “Number one: We stay together.”

  I avoided eye contact, nodded.

  “Number two: Anytime the conversation goes to a place that you find difficult, you have the right to say you need to be alone, or you’d like to change the subject. No interrogations. We both know what that’s like.”

  I looked up slowly.

  “And number three: I’m new at this aunt business, so I’d appreciate it if you’d cut me some slack.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Do we need to cover anything else?”

  I looked at Malachi, who cocked his head like a dog and whined.

  “Maybe you could make doubly sure the wolf is well-fed.”

  “You want him to lose his raw edge?”

  “More than anything.”

  Jo looked up in the darkening sky and laughed. Then she headed toward the cabin; at least, I hoped it was toward the cabin. We could have been off on another blistering hike to build my character.

  I tend to follow by faith.

  * * *

  It was four-thirty and dark already. I took off my Gore-Tex gloves and shone the lantern across the cages and feathered friends in the bird hospital. I peered inside a small metal garbage can crawling with grossness.

  “You really want me to touch these things?” I looked at the little meal worms slithering on the burlap that had been placed over rotting potatoes and cornmeal—a big delicacy, if you’re a meal worm.

  “I really want you to touch those things.” Jo was examining a little robin with a bandage on its leg.

  I scraped several worms into a dish, added some bread, evaporated milk, mushed it up like Jo had told me. Meal worms in a sick bird’s diet provided important protein a bird couldn’t get with just bread and milk. When I had my parakeet, Charlemagne, we went to the pet store, bought seed, hung one of those bird treats from the side of the cage. The bird lived for four years—never complained.

  You don’t realize how easy you have it in childhood until it’s all over.

  “Madame and Monsieur,” I said in my best French-waiter voice, “zee first course for zee evening—Worm à la creme!”

  Jo laughed, put her hand in a cage, leaving it there like she had all the time in the world. A small striped bird was in the corner, not too thrilled about getting personal.

  “You afraid, kiddo?” She moved her hand an inch toward the bird who stuck his head low and tried to cover it with his feathers. His little belly was beating, his body was shaking.

  “He’s scared.” Jo took a toothpick, put food on it, held it out toward the bird. “It’s okay, baby.” She gently tapped his beak with the toothpick. “This is what the parents do when they come back to the nest with food.” The little bird kept shaking, but took the food. “Keep going, kid.” She fed him some more, took her hand out slowly, closed the cage.

  “They show emotions just like humans do.” Jo moved to the next cage. “You approach a bird with respect for their sensitivities.”

  This disqualified Breedlove lawyers.

  I watched the blue jay in the next cage, who had a pallid look and didn’t have many feathers.

  “He wasn’t getting a proper diet—his feathers started falling off. I’m going to start adding a little wet dog food to his food in a few days.”

  “Dog food?”

  “It works with birds—it’s a good source of protein. I wouldn’t feed it to him forever, but up here you learn to be flexible.”

  The blue jay inhaled the food.

  Next in line—a crow with a big splint on his wing. He didn’t need help eating; he finished the food in his dish, shoved back his head and squawked, turned over his dish, demanding more. He’d feel right at home in my high school lunchroom.

  Jo examined the crow’s wing without him minding. She showed me how his wing was fractured at the tip. “People look at birds and think they’re all alike. You have to take time with a living thing to study it, see its moods, how it reacts under pressure, what it responds to. How can you get to know something if you’re always grabbing at it without understanding who it is, where it came from, and what it needs?”

  She moved to the next cage. A little yellow bird perked up to see her. “Hi there, sunshine.” The bird fluttered in excitement as Jo opened the cage, gently put her hand inside. Without hesitation, the bird jumped on her finger, and sat proudly. “This little guy was half-dead when I found him—he had a gash on the side of his body. I sewed it up, but I didn’t know if he would make it. But he’s got the best attitude—just comes alive around people. That helps when you’re getting cared for.” She patted the bird’s neck. “Myself, now, I’m at the opposite end of the pole—I can take people here and there, but not a steady stream. Too many people make me tired.” She touched her heart. “I live too much in here.”

  I wondered if I was making Jo tired. She looked awake, but it’s hard to tell with hermits.

  “We’re all made different ways,” she said. “We’ve got to appreciate that about each other.”

  The yellow bird was chirping away on Jo’s finger, pecking the seeds in her hand. Jo took a small bowl of water and put it in the cage. The bird jumped in, shaking water everywhere.

  “This child loves his bath.”

  “He does.”

  Jo put shallow bowls in six other cages and those birds had a time, splashing and tweeting.

  The wind picked up outside, blowing strong. The roof started creaking. The birds stopped playing. Some went to the corners of
their cages. We covered the cages with strips of wool blankets for extra insulation and Jo said good night to each one, like a mother tucking in her children at night.

  We walked outside, locked the padlock on the door.

  Suddenly, I remembered my mother tucking me in at night. I saw her face as clear as anything—her dark brown eyes, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, her patches of freckles, her wide nose. The picture filled my mind for a few sweet seconds, then vanished. I tried to get it back, but I couldn’t. I stood there, holding the gift of the memory.

  * * *

  We had the bean soup from last night and I baked one of the greatest corn breads in all of American history on the wood stove in a cast iron skillet like an official pioneer woman, and watched it puff up to golden perfection. We had it slathered with honey and salted butter that Jo kept on ice in the supply shed.

  The fire was crackling good and strong; I was wearing two pairs of long underwear underneath my insulated sub zero pajamas and triple fleece-lined mountain slippers.

  There were a few chickadees in the house; I put birdseed in my hand, held it out, didn’t swallow, but none of them wanted to come to me. I didn’t see what the big deal was about Jo’s hand being so much more preferable than mine. I sniffed my palm, tried sniffing under my armpits. Nothing objectionable. The birds were sitting on Jo’s head and on her shoulder, peeping occasionally, but not so you’d mind.

  I watched the five candles flick light across the long wall of floor-to-ceiling bookcases at the far end of the cabin. It was interesting how shadows change a room. The chickadees had moved to the fireplace mantel and sat in a row; the candle illuminated their shadows up on the log wall like they were eagles.

  It was eight o’clock and there was no television.

  I smiled remembering when I’d been sick at home with the flu last fall, too sick to read, propped up on the soft camel couch in the family room, clicking the remote control from channel to channel like some brainless amoeba. I couldn’t believe the useless information I had gotten in that one, long afternoon.

  A woman in a pink exercise suit said that doing stomach crunches controlled her anger.

  A man in spandex pants said that he’d lost seventy-five pounds by eating peanut butter.

  A newscaster in a trench coat reported that in a recent study 48% of Americans chose shopping as their favorite hobby.

  A politician in a lumberjack shirt accused of tax evasion denied it to different reporters using the same phrase: “I have not, nor have I ever been involved, to my knowledge, in with-holding payment of any kind from the United States government.”

  I snuggled up in a wool blanket and watched the chickadees watching me. I wondered about the life of a bird, the choices it had to make. Should it eat this worm or this mosquito? Build a nest in a tree or a potted begonia hanger? I wondered if birds were ever misunderstood by their families. I wondered if all this wilderness had made me go over the edge.

  It had been ninety-seven minutes since anyone spoke. I looked at Jo who looked back and smiled and said nothing. I wondered if I’d done something wrong.

  In my house, people filled in the silences. True, it was usually with words that didn’t matter, but at least people were talking to each other.

  I closed my eyes and listened to the quiet.

  The fire sputtered.

  The wind moved gently through the trees.

  I’d been complaining for years about needing peace, and now here I was, engulfed by it.

  I felt my heart racing, my forehead pounding. Too much quiet could be irritating. It gave you too much time to think.

  I thought about Dad and the law-school brochures he’d stick on my bed so I wouldn’t miss them.

  I thought of the times he’d confront me like a law professor bent on tearing a first-year law student to shreds.

  “Tell me, Ivy, what is this incessant passion of yours for history?”

  I’d try reason. “I just think that it’s so interesting that history gives us the ability to look at other people’s lives and see the decisions they made and how those decisions affected whole societies. We can learn so much from that, Dad, about how to live our lives now.”

  “And how should you be living your life now?”

  “Well …” Some things defied words.

  “What are these great insights you’ve been given, Ivy? State them.”

  Shaking voice. “I’ve learned, Dad, that every time you think humanity has reached a low level, it can go lower, but on the positive side—”

  Dad’s great voice shook the rafters. “I’m not interested in assumptions. How low has humanity sunk?”

  My throat would close up. “I don’t want to do it now, Dad.”

  “You spend most of your life with your face stuck in a history book. I’d like to know just what you’re getting from the experience.”

  “I don’t want to play anymore, Dad.”

  “Play?” he roared. “This is how you learn to think!”

  I’d run from the room, eyes stinging, fists clenched, heart beating with fury at not being able to defend those things that meant so much to me.

  Your father’s a good man.

  “Should we be talking?” Jo asked. “I’m so used to not doing it that I forget about words sometimes.”

  “It’s okay,” I lied. “I like the quiet.”

  “It took me awhile to get used to the silence,” Jo offered. “When I first came up here I felt like screaming. It was quite a change from life in town.” She waited, rocked. “I hope I didn’t make you feel uncomfortable about what I said about your dad.”

  “Oh no,” I said, hating myself. I wished I was direct like Egan.

  I walked to the carved statue of Tib.

  “Tib misses you,” I said.

  “I miss her, too.” Jo got up. “When I moved up here, I wasn’t sure how to explain this life to people, so I stopped writing. It wasn’t the best way. I’d wanted to live in the mountains all my life …”

  “I think she would have understood.”

  “Maybe.” Jo was standing at the carving now. “The greatest gift Tib gave me was showing me how to really listen to someone. She said when a quiet person has been put in a family of big talkers you don’t have much choice except to listen hard to what others have to say.”

  I’d never thought of it that way.

  “Quiet people can learn from others just by listening. But it isn’t listening passively when someone is talking to you. Listening can be very active once you get the hang of it. Look at the person’s face, hear their voice, see their eyes and their body language, put your biases aside and the things you want to say next and just let them talk.”

  “I’m pretty used to being cut off,” I said.

  “I know that feeling well. Words are such powerful things. We can rip somebody apart with them, we can change the course of our lives by speaking them, we can write words down that can forever hurt another person. We can use them to tell stories and lies. We can misquote them and change what other people said to make ourselves look good. But living up here for as long as I have, I’ve learned that I don’t need many words. I think it’s why I like carving better. No words, just images trying to get the essence of something across.”

  We stood in the silence for the longest time. It was a healing silence. I closed my eyes and let it flow over me like gentle waves on an empty beach.

  My breathing was quiet, I felt the rhythm of my body relax deep. Tension spilled out of my pores like a faucet had been turned on.

  It was good not to need words.

  15

  I was lugging icy water from the lake just as dawn broke out across the horizon, glowing bigger and brighter until the sky turned to morning. I felt a ripple of history wash through me.

  I walked out on the rickety pier. I couldn’t see across to the other side of the frozen lake. I felt close to the only person alive in the whole world. I thought about my ancestors charting the canals of history, standin
g on the shore of rivers and oceans, wondering what lay on the other side. Being Breedloves, they probably had no clue where they were, directionally speaking. I certainly didn’t. Maybe this was why so many became lawyers, not explorers.

  I wonder when my family really began, but no one can ever know that. Breedloves could go back to the Norsemen, or the Jutes and the Angles, or back to some mysterious band sloshing out life in a foggy bog.

  But I was linked to their beginnings like an acorn is linked to a tree. They worked out their own laws, philosophies, and family systems; they were influenced by the culture of the day, like me.

  The difficult chickadee with the cut-off tail was watching me from a pine tree.

  I adjusted the wooden yoke around my neck. I still was lame at using it.

  “What are you looking at?”

  The bird responded with its trembling chirp.

  I lunged toward the cabin, trying to stand up straight, sloshing frigid water. I might as well try to bathe in the lake for all the water I actually got back to the cabin. The bird followed me, chirping.

  “If you poop on me again, I’m going to get mad.”

  The bird lighted on a branch and cocked its head.

  “Don’t look so innocent.”

  The yoke was slipping off my shoulder. I bent down, laid it on the ground, dug my hands in my pocket and found some seed.

  “You want it?”

  The bird studied me, making a judgement, not flying off.

  I took off my glove (a sacrifice—it was cold), layered the seed in my hand, held my arm out so slowly, opened my palm. “Come on.”

  Nothing.

  I stood there, whistled.

  The bird sat on the branch.

  “I’m going to keep standing here until you get the idea.”

  The chickadee pecked at the branch.

  “I know Josephine. We hang out.”

  My hand was cold, but I was determined not to move or swallow. An icy breeze lifted the hair on the back of my neck.

  “Take a chance, bird. You could do worse. There could be lawyers here.”

  The bird considered this, hopped on a lower branch.