Backwater Read online

  To my surprise, I found that reading it out loud was only a tenth as difficult as trusting a wolf to lead me across thin ice.

  “That’s how I had to write it, sir. If you can’t see fit to use the whole story, then I think I have to withdraw as historian.”

  G. Preston Roblick looked down and spoke, it seemed, from deep within his oxford shirt.

  “Against my better judgement, we will let history be the judge.”

  “I think that’s right, sir. There will be a few snickers and giggles as kids get used to the idea—more than a few, probably—but I think that eventually—”

  “This is not helping your cause, Ms. Breedlove.”

  “Right. I’ll shut up.”

  21

  It was March 2nd. I was standing in the old family cemetery holding the one-hundred-and-eighty page Breedlove family history, complete with genealogical charts, copies of the gravestone rubbings, important artifacts, and scores of ancestral photos down through the ages. I ran my hand over the fake blue-leather cover that was embossed with a raised gold B, which added a distinctive, ageless flair.

  I had seventy-five copies made, and when they were delivered, the man in the truck left them on the doorstep in twelve boxes. I carried them inside carefully, feeling like a mother who had just given birth, although Aunt Cassandra, who had recently been in labor for eighteen hours giving birth to twin boys, said there was absolutely no comparison.

  I opened the book to the plastic pull-out section in the back that was about my mother. Even though she wasn’t a blood Breedlove, she was a part of us and she had given me her love for history. It had a photograph of her holding me as a baby as Dad looked on smiling. Across the photograph, I’d put blue stick-on letters that read “GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.” I’d listed her accomplishments (where she went to school—University of Michigan; where she worked—from 31 Flavors to the Department of Social Services) and the things I knew she liked (rain storms, jazz, milkshakes, and helping people). I had a copy of her gravestone rubbing on a separate page. I’d found a picture in a magazine of a beautiful soaring white dove, cut it out carefully, and pasted it in the corner. Last night I left the book open to her section by my bedroom window and when I woke up this morning, I knew she had seen it.

  Aunt Tib’s party was about to start.

  It was strange to be through with this project. I’d worked so hard to get it right. I didn’t know if I was ready to let go.

  My inner critic was working overtime.

  Had I written it well enough?

  Would people read it?

  Did I go overboard?

  I looked at the mountains and realized those questions didn’t matter anymore.

  Josephine was in the house for the first time in twelve years. She spent most of her time outside near where her cave had been, feeding the birds, coaxing them into her hand, clomping across the lawn with her big cast and crutches, cultivating what peace she could find.

  “It bothers me that I always know where to find you.”

  It was Egan, looking particularly miserable in a suit and tie. He pulled at his white collar.

  “Fiona’s got a big screen set up, and speakers around the room, but don’t let it throw you, Ivy. Everybody really wants to read yours. We’re getting started now.”

  As a runner, Egan didn’t understand that the race was over. He held his hand out to help me up and we walked past the gravestones and up the front porch to the party.

  Balloons were everywhere, even though Tib couldn’t see them. She could feel them and that was enough.

  When we walked into the living room, Tib sensed the winds of history blowing and shouted, “Ivy Breedlove, I cannot wait another second. Bring it here to me.”

  A trumpet fanfare would have been appropriate.

  I was as proud as a person could be.

  I held the book out like it was made of diamonds. It was, too—the treasures of understanding a part of why my relatives lived their lives the way they did. I’d seen family traits like aggressiveness and courage played out throughout the generations. I’d learned the supreme value of lawyers—how they thought, why they needed to argue, and the unquenchable courage that comes to those who have been raised by them. I’d seen history repeated—generations of widowers who never remarried, hermit-like characteristics in several Breedlove women—from Vesta on the Mayflower to Josephine. I saw family patterns broken, defended, and new healthy ones established. I learned that I am not an exact replica of anyone and I don’t need to be. I learned that understanding comes from acceptance.

  I walked past Fiona, who smiled from her heart, past Dad who patted me on the shoulder and said with great effort, “Your mother would be exceedingly proud of you. I am proud for both of us.”

  I gulped, nodded, kept walking. Tib shouted, “And, Josephine, you come on up here with her.”

  Jo hobbled to my side. We were both laughing a little.

  “Put the book in my hand,” Tib ordered.

  I did. She felt the cover, felt the embossed B, nodded her head.

  “It’s good and heavy,” she said approvingly.

  “One hundred and eighty pages,” I said proudly.

  “You start reading it to me after dinner.”

  “I will.”

  Tib took my hand and took Josephine’s, too.

  I desperately wanted to say, “I probably got some stuff wrong,” but I didn’t say it. Like any piece of written history, this was my cut at truth and discovery.

  Tib said a cycle in history had been completed and it was one of the happiest days of her life.

  The assembled Breedloves broke into rafter-shaking clapping. Josephine looked like she wanted to bolt, but she stood right there smiling.

  Historians and hermits aren’t used to applause.

  It’s funny how things are connected.

  I went off in search of my aunt, and when I found her, I discovered a missing piece of myself in the process.

  I also got an excellent boyfriend who was smiling at me now.

  Jack had just walked in the door, and believe me when I tell you, if there was ever a reason to cross an icy ledge in the middle of winter, that reason was standing there in the hallway looking up at the balloons.

  The blessings of those who pursue history are many.

  22

  Jo was ready to go home, but she still wasn’t strong enough to rebuild her cabin by herself.

  An argument began at this point between Dad, Archie, and Josephine.

  Dad said Josephine needed the family to help her rebuild.

  “Dan,” Archie sneered, “have you ever built a log cabin?”

  Dad announced that the essence of a meaningful life was attempting new, challenging things.

  Jo said forget it, it was her cabin. She would rebuild it when it was time.

  But lawyers like to win. Dad faced down Josephine like she was a defendant in court. “Josephine, I want to be very clear about this. If I need to get used to your ways of being, you need to get used to mine. That’s compromise.”

  “We will help you build your cabin,” Archie insisted, “and you’d bloody well better say yes.”

  “Yes,” said Jo, throwing up her hands, laughing.

  So in early April Dad hired two loggers to cart away the fallen trees near the cabin and to bring up the supplies we would need to rebuild. A few weeks later Archie, Dad, myself, Egan, and four cousins showed up during my spring vacation.

  Jack came to help, too. He led us up the mountain.

  Newness was breaking out everywhere in the woods. Tree leaves were sprouting, birds were courting and building nests, ferns poked up from the ground, moss grew on trails, the smell of pine seemed fresher. The lake that saved me and Jo had a few chunks of ice floating on top of the deep blue water. I liked seeing it that way.

  We didn’t work well together in the beginning, log cabins and Breedloves being what they are. The basic problem was that Dad and Archie weren’t in charge (Jo was) and they
kept competing over whose side of the cabin was better (Dad’s was—he took more time). Hammering and sawing aren’t natural gifts of mine, but doing them with Jack shielded the blows—and from the look of my black-and-blue thumb, the blows were many. Jo’s hermit needs kept coming out; her face would get cloudy, her body would get stiff, and she’d walk into the woods alone to pull herself together.

  It was a tough week—the men slept in tents; Jo and I bunked in the chapel. It was so sad seeing the loss of so many of Jo’s treasures, but she kept saying she was glad to be alive. She would replace what she needed over time.

  Halfway through the week, a ranger brought Malachi up to Backwater. That wolf was so happy to be home that he ran toward Jo and almost knocked her down.

  The men grunted and groaned like men do when they’re building things that last.

  The birds circled overhead, but were frightened away by the noise and the shouting. Only a few stayed to watch at first, but the numbers grew as the cabin took shape.

  I stood on the roof and put the last of the shingles on as dozens of birds fluttered above.

  That’s when my personal chickadee swept in for a free meal. I had seed in my pocket, too, and I stood there on the roof like a wilderness woman, held my hand out without swallowing, and gave that bird his lunch.

  Remember me this way.

  Everyone was impressed.

  The cabin was finished in late April.

  Some of Jo’s carvings had been saved in the rubble, but I sensed the best ones were yet to come. Jo put them around the house, over the repaired mantel, and we saw Dad’s face open in wonder at the statue of himself as a boy going fishing.

  That’s when Jo threw him a fishing pole and pointed him down the trail.

  He took the rod like a purposeful lawyer and came back a gentler man. Jack said lake trout can do that.

  It seemed right being here, and it seemed just as right when we left. We held hands in the chapel and bowed our heads in silence as the birds watched us from their ledge. Josephine looked relieved when we hugged her and marched down the mountain. She could finally be herself. Alone.

  But there were Breedlove whispers everywhere in Backwater now.

  Not the kind that divided, the kind that brought hope.

  That’s what keeps people connected and trying and pushing past fears to make things better, even in the darkest moments.

  You can’t pursue history without finding hope.

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  JOAN BAUER

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