Court Papers in the Locked Drawer of a Community Doctor
I stood by the woodpile and watched the red tail lights of the station wagon disappear through the dark hemlocks, the sound of the tires fading into the vast, quiet space of the forest. The silence that returned was not the heavy, suffocating silence of the house in town, but the deep, natural quiet of the woods.
I walked back to the cabin porch and sat on the top step, where my father had sat every evening of his retirement. From my pocket, I pulled his silver pocket watch, its heavy casing cool and solid in my palm.
I pressed the small release button on the top, and the silver face clicked open in the dim light. The tiny black hands moved with a rhythmic, mechanical tick, a steady and unbroken sound that had survived three generations of my family.
This land stays in our family, just as my father wanted.
I closed the silver watch, the metal clicking shut with a final, solid sound. The lake lay before me, its waters dark and calm under the vast canopy of the evening sky.
The quiet lapping of the lake water against the wooden dock as the first evening star appeared.
I had finally found the quiet ground my father always wanted for me.
