Backwater (12 page)

“You don’t get it,” Jo said again, looking right at me.

“I don’t know what you mean, Aunt Jo. I get it. Look for peace in life.”

“No.”

“That’s what you said.”

“No.”

“I don’t understand. Is there some big secret?”

“Yes,” said Jo, closing her eyes and leaning back on the rock.

We were a mile from the cabin. The pine trees gave off a fresh, light scent. It made me think about the fake pine scents in the world—the candles, the car fresheners, the toilet bowl sprays.

New and improved natural pine scent—like being in a forest even though you are standing next to your toilet bowl
.

Not once, in all my years of going to the bathroom, had I ever felt like I was in a forest when I sprayed.

Jo picked up a piece of tree bark from the ground and held it to the light. The wood was rotted and the bark peeled off easily. She reached into her pocket, took out a small carved figure. “I made him out of one of these,” she said.

I held the wooden figure in my hand—nine inches long, perfectly proportioned, a young boy with a fishing rod and an expression of reverie on his face. I turned the figure over and over.

“Recognize him?” Jo asked.

Caution rose up in me. I studied the figure again. When I looked at the boy’s eyes, I knew.

It was my father as a boy.

“I did that one last year from a picture I had of your dad during one of our vacations, heading down to the lake to fish. He so loved to fish—it was the thing that gave him utmost joy.”

I felt the smoothness of the wood on the boy’s cheeks; the expression was so real, I felt as though it was alive. “I didn’t know he fished. He’s never talked about it.”

“He had uncanny instincts about where to find trout. The adult fisherman would follow him to see where he let down his line. He got wise to them, though, and took those poor men on wild goose chases in every trout-free river he could think of.”

“I can’t picture him with a fishing rod. He plays golf.”

“He’d sit for hours, just waiting, watching the water for a ripple. Dan had such patience.”

“Patience!” I almost dropped the carving from laughing. Dad with patience. Now
that
was funny.

“His eyes would crackle just like that when he was headed off early in the morning.”

Now his eyes crackle when he catches criminals, or depending on how rich they are, when he gets them off.

“Such a shame,” Jo said, “when we lose track of the things that have brought us joy.”

She seemed so genuinely kind. I thought of all the mean words Dad had said about her.

Disturbed.

Strange.

Emotionally unstable.

A deserter.

“There’s another side to your dad. A gentle side.”

“It’s gone.”

“Misplaced.”

Excuse me.

I
knew my father.
I’d
known him for sixteen years. He was a hard man, an intense, aggressive, type-A man. I could picture him throwing rocks in a lake to stun a few fish and take them home for dinner, but Daniel Webster Breedlove was not the kind of man who would take the time to fish. Dad was not a man of patience.

A small brown bird swept down from the sky, landed on the icy ground, peered at us, and started chirping like mad.

“Do you ever wonder,” Jo mused, “what the birds are saying?”

I used to think about that when I was small, but I didn’t have time to think of those things any more. I shrugged.

Jo took off her glove, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a few sunflower seeds. She slowly put seeds in her hand, held it out, then stood perfectly still.

“Come on, baby.”

After a few moments, the bird flew into her palm. I watched transfixed as it perched gently on her thumb, picked up a seed, and flew off.

“They understand more than we give them credit for,” Jo said.

“I didn’t know you could just feed a bird like that.”

“You can’t,” said Jo, and started back down the trail.

*    *    *

We rounded the sloping trail back past the cabin to a small clearing by the frozen lake.

“Ever fed a chickadee?” Jo asked me.

“No.”

She pointed in the pine tree at two small black, white, and gray birds who were watching us. “One of the friendliest birds around. Hi, kids. Got to provide for the constituents.” She slowly reached into her pocket, her hand came out with seeds in the outstretched palm. “Take some seeds from my hand, Ivy; hold out your arm, and wait.”

“They’ll eat from my hand?” I took the seed.

“If you were alone, they wouldn’t. It takes a long time to get wild birds to trust you. If you stand next to me, they might. They know me. All you’ve got to remember is stand as still as you can, don’t swallow, and say something gentle.”

I stood still, hand out, glove off. It was freezing.

“Uh …” I gazed up at the birds, feeling stupid. “How’s it going?”

The chickadees looked at each other.

“Try again.” Jo whispered. “Reach deeper.”

“So … birds … do you come here often?”

Jo laughed.

I tried hard not to swallow, but when you’re not supposed to do something you want to all the more. I swallowed.

They flew to a higher branch.

One bird flew with strange choppy movements. He had a shorter, cropped tail. He sat on the branch, peered at me, ruffled his feathers.

“Look … I have food for you.”

Too obvious.

“This seed looks pretty serious, particularly the sunflowers. Yum.”

Too over the top. My outstretched arm was atrophying.

Another bird circled. I stood totally still, held out my arm. The bird lighted on the ground, considered me, decided against, flew off.

“I don’t think they like me,” I said.

“Maybe they don’t think you like them.”

“I like them fine.”

“Find a way to let them know.”

“I’m hardly breathing. I’m holding out this stupid seed. If anyone at my school ever saw me doing this they’d call the men in white coats.” I instantly wished I hadn’t said that. “I didn’t mean you were crazy, Aunt Jo. This is all kind of … unusual.”

“Come on, kids,” Jo said quietly. One chickadee flew to her hand, gobbled up a seed, flew off. The difficult one watched.

I was determined to feed this bird. I held out my hand to him. “Okay, guy, on three—one, two …”

The bird rose, fluttered his wings, swooped down towards me.

My heart skipped.

He hovered above me, considered the seed, and pooped a big one dead-center in my hand.

“
Hey!
”

He landed back up in the tree and looked at me.

“Same to you, fella!”

I threw the seed down, wiped my hand on the snow as the bird let out a single, trembling chirp.

“It takes patience,” Jo said, heading down the trail. I walked after her, turned around and saw the bird flutter down, eat the seed on the ground, fly back to the branch, and study me.

I made a face at it, which I know was immature, and headed off.

I didn’t look back, but I heard the trembling chirp.

We were on our way back to the cabin. My blister was throbbing from the six-mile hike. I felt like every bird in the woods thought of me as Attila the Hun. I was trying to understand how my father could have started out one way and ended up another.

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.”