Crestmont Read Free Page A

typewriter and typed “July 10, 1910.” Pressing the carriage return several times she said, “All right, Daddy, tell me to whom I should be sending confirmations.”
    Her father, comfortable with this routine, combed his fingernails through his black beard and recited, “The Hedgemore’s . They are always late in requesting a reservation and complain when they are offered rooms on the third sleeping floor. Then there would be Mrs. Emit Darling and Mr. and Mrs. Harold Rodgers. Very gracious people, the Rodgers. They have been coming to the Crestmont for years, and write me a thank you note after each visit.”
    Margaret’s fingers flew over the keys while she mentally kept a clear distinction between the names tumbling out of her father’s mouth and the people to whom she actually needed to send confirmations. In many cases, despite her father’s mental deterioration, he was correct. Guests often returned the same time year after year. It was the newer people whose names William Warner could not remember.

     
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    Months passed and all Margaret wanted to do was to sit at his bedside. Her father’s decline over the winter had been slow, but steady. The doctor’s diagnosis of a weak heart that would stop beating in a few weeks was difficult to accept, but the real heartbreak was watching his brilliant mind slowly ebb into oblivion.
    William Woods, Margaret’s husband, had been acting administrator of the inn for several months due to her father’s illness. At the moment he was downstairs in his new office, working at the substantial desk her mother felt he needed, planning a June convention hosted by the Crestmont .
    Margaret, however, craved her father’s presence. Even in his senseless state, somehow she would let him know he was not alone. All of a sudden, his eyes fluttered open as he dug his yellow fingernails into the sheets.
    “I’m here, Daddy.” She brushed the hair off his forehead with her fingers, yearning to hear his calm voice again.
    He appeared to be completely lucid. “Moppet,” he said, using his pet name for her, “I have so many things to tell you and so little time.” Raising himself a bit in the bed, he regarded her with an unexpected intensity that bore both an opening of hope in her soul and a wound in her heart. “You’ve always shared my Crestmont dream. Please continue it after I am gone. Always offer quality. The key is to give the guests what they need, even when they aren’t aware what that is. You have always been so strong. I know you can do this.”
    He laced his fingers across his chest and prayed, “Thank you, God, for my inn. It has blessed and sustained me.”
    Resentment seethed in Margaret. It was inconceivable for her to anticipate running the inn while her father lay before her dying. When she lifted her head, his eyes were closed, the moment of clarity gone. Why had she looked away? Suddenly, she heard an odd hissing sound.
    “What is it, Daddy?” She rose and put her ear close to his mouth, and he haltingly managed to say something that sounded like “forty.” She searched his face. His eyes momentarily locked on hers, then lost focus and retreated into the tangled mass that used to be his sharp mind. Margaret knew he was gone. She rose, put her ear to his chest and heard nothing.
    Paralyzed, she sat with him a long time. Her mind moved from benumbing pain to tearful memories of his proud, animated face and dramatic gestures when he had first ushered them into the grand lobby. In one year’s time he had planned the inn and had brought in two hundred carpenters to build it. He passionately nurtured it for the next eleven.
    Margaret, a woman in her twenties, wanted to climb back up into her father’s lap and feel his long arms cradle her. She wanted to relive the days when, as an adolescent, he had shared with her his idea of building the Crestmont . Finally, without knowing how much time had passed, she willed herself to go downstairs to tell her