Chapter 3-004

And you'd think Juli's dad—who's a big,strong, bricklaying dude — would fix the place up, but no. According to my mom,he spends all his free time painting. His landscapes don'tseem like anything special to me, but judging by his price tags, he thinksquite a lot of them. We see them every year at the Mayfield County Fair, and myparents always say the same thing: “The world would have more beauty in it ifhe'd fix up the yard instead.” Mom and Juli's mom do talk some. I think my momfeels sorry for Mrs. Baker — she says she married a dreamer, and because ofthat, one of the two of them will always be unhappy. Whatever. Maybe Juli'saesthetic sensibilities have been permanently screwed up by her father and noneof this is her fault, but Juli has always thought that that sycamore tree wasGod's gift to our little corner of the universe. Back in the third and fourthgrades she used to clown around with her brothers in the branches or peel bigchunks of bark off so they could slide down the crook in its trunk. It seemedlike they were playing in it whenever my mom took us somewhere in the car.Juli'd be swinging from the branches, ready to fall and break every bone in herbody, while we were waiting at the stoplight, and my mom would shake her headand say, “Don't you ever climb that tree like that, do you hear me, Bryce? Inever want to see you doing that! You either, Lynetta. That is much toodangerous.”