Backwater Read Online Free Page B

everything.”
    “Excuse me, but didn’t that put a lot of pressure on you? It’s pretty hard to be excellent at everything.”
    “Some of us manage.”
    “What other things did Grandpa expect?” I asked cautiously.
    Dad interjected, “Our father said given the chance to be a rich lawyer or a poor one, any son of his better choose the former.”
    “I guess there was a reason Grandpa was called ‘Iron Will.’”
    “He lived up to the name.” Dad and Archie said this in unison.
    “Uncle Archie,” I pleaded. “Could I get my dad’s comments now? I’m going to interview you next. I promise.”
    Archie’s chin stuck out in immovable Breedlove fashion.
    “Please?” I added.
    He retreated to the hall, but like all powerful lawyers, his presence remained.
    I broached the next part gently. “Uh, Dad … how did Josephine feel about having law school at dinner?”
    “Josephine,” Dad began coarsely, “had her own ways of not being present.”
    “She certainly did,” Archie added from the doorway.
    “I’ve seen pictures of her hiding under the dinner table …”
    “That,” Archie asserted, “was one of many places.”
    Dad got up angrily. “She deliberately walked away from this family, never turning back. She has lost her family privileges and I, for one, won’t waste any breath talking about her.”
    He stormed out.
    “Dad …”
    I followed him, holding out the tape recorder. “We don’t have to talk about Josephine, Dad. We can talk about anything else. What you want from life … what your father wanted.”
    He looked at me with irritation.
    I went for a global perspective, held the tape recorder out, smiled caringly. “What do you want to say to future generations, Dad?”
    “Ivy,” Dad intoned, “I want to be very clear about this. For future generations, including you. Breedloves have been born and bred to love the law. I have nothing more to say.” He marched up the stairs.
    Uncle Archie checked my tape recorder to make sure it was on. “Personally, Ivy, I feel that my life didn’t begin until I went to law school.”
    I leaned wearily against the wall holding the recorder. “Can you tell me about that, Uncle Archie?”
    *    *    *
    I had ninety taped minutes of Uncle Archie droning on about law school.
    I had a headache, too.
    It was nine A.M. I was back in the family cemetery trying to become centered. Most people don’t realize that gravemarkers are the oldest surviving form of American folk art. Walking through an old cemetery is like walking through history—you can learn something about the people buried there, their families, and the time in which they died. Take the Puritans—they were big on life being hard in the 1600s and their gravemarkers shouted it. If you’re into despair, you’ll feel right at home with the hollow-eyed skulls, crossed bones, and grim reapers. Personally, I’m more of an eighteenth century person. Give me a gravestone with winged cherubs and rosettes any day.
    I studied the holly wreaths at my grandparents’ graves—the sharp green leaves, the small red berries. It was the perfect touch, a simple statement. I liked simple things.
    Nobody sees a flower, really—it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
    That’s what the artist Georgia O’Keeffe said. I tilted my head to look at the holly, boring in deep as I imagined Georgia O’Keeffe would. My concentration was broken as usual.
    “Good
morning!”
Fiona shouted it like a caffeinated tour guide, did a quick sweep of a few headstones with her videocam, said, “That should do it,” and started walking around the house, missing just about everything of historical significance, like the porch Great-Grandpa brought all the way from the first family home in New Hampshire, the garden stones Great-Great-Aunt Lucrecia carried here from England that were in her mother’s prize garden, the bird feeder that Josephine sculpted out of granite