Cutter's Run by William G. Tapply Page B

maybe she’s right. But I know I could sell some of this land and make out pretty good. I’ve had some inquiries. I just don’t feel like it’s mine to sell. Not since I learned…” He shrugged. “She’s a good daughter, Brady, and after me she’s the only Hollingsworth left. She drops by couple times a week to check up on me, clean the house, take care of things I neglect. Stays the night up in her bedroom, makes me breakfast the next morning, then she’s off to work again. It’s been real nice these past couple weeks, having her around every day. Imagine, a daughter spending her vacation time taking care of her old man. I’ll miss her when she goes back to the city.”
    “Portland?”
    He nodded. “That’s her home office, and she’s got a condo right on the water, though she ain’t there that much. Travels all over, making her deals, as she calls it. New York, D.C., the West Coast, Europe, Japan, the Middle East. She sends me postcards. All these pretty places. I never set foot outside of New England in my life.” He shook his head. “It’s a sign of the times when your kid’s been to more places in her short life than you have in your long one.”
    “Talk to her,” I said. “Tell her what’s happening. Tell her what you want her to do.”
    “I guess I know that,” he said softly. I noticed that his eyes glittered. “She didn’t take it well when Jessie passed. Now me. It’ll be hard.” He paused. “I wonder if you’d do me a kindness, Brady.”
    I nodded.
    “After I’m gone there’ll be… business to attend to.” He cocked his head and looked at me.
    “Susannah will need legal advice,” I said. “Of course I’ll do whatever I can.”
    “It would sure put my mind to rest,” he said.
    “Don’t even think about it,” I said. “In the meantime, you’ll feel better after you talk to her.”
    “I suppose I will,” he said. “But it ain’t me I’m worried about.” He reached over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks for listening to an old man’s ramble.” He held up his glass. “I’m empty. That’s no good. Let’s go get refills.”
    Susannah grilled chicken breasts for dinner, along with fresh green beans and baked potatoes. Paul tossed the salad and mixed his own special dressing. We shared two bottles of a nice Chardonnay, devoured a warm apple pie, and afterward we sipped brandy on the deck and watched darkness seep into the orchard.
    We avoided topics touching on swastikas and business and death. Alex asked a lot of questions about apple-growing, which segued into a discussion of pie and applesauce and cider and a debate over the merits of old New England apples such as Northern Spies and Baldwins versus what Noah called “popsicles” like Delicious and Mcintosh.
    I mentioned the beaver pond in the valley that separated Noah’s property from Arnold Hood’s. I said I was thinking of trekking in one morning with my fly rod to see if any brook trout still lived there. Noah said he remembered when the milldam for the old tannery blew out in an April flood. Sometime back in the fifties, he recalled. When he was a kid, the locals used to catch trout out of Cutter’s Run, he said. Susannah said that they caught them when she was a kid, too.
    Paul sat quietly, smiling at the right times, but he didn’t say much. His eyes kept darting to Susannah, and whenever he did, she always seemed to be looking somewhere else. At one point, I caught him glancing at his wristwatch.
    We left a little after nine. The three of them stood on the porch, waving as we pulled away. Susannah had her arm around her father’s waist, and Paul stood beside her with his hand on the back of her neck.
    We drove the back roads in silence, and when I pulled into Alex’s driveway and switched off the engine, neither of us made a move to get out.
    “Have a nice time?” she said after a minute.
    “Sure.”
    “I worry,” she said.
    “About what?”
    “Oh, it’s ungracious of me, I