The Rail Read Free

chronological age, has never even seemed grown, to tell the truth. Never married, he’s spent much of the last 10 years in the company of a woman two towns away who seems no more interested in a wedding than he does.
    â€œAin’t that a shame about the trees?” he asks them both, pointing in the general direction of the bare earth. He tells them about the new DrugWorld that’s supposed to go there, “a superstore.”
    â€œIt’s going to put Tim Rasher right out of business,” Tom says. Neil knows the Rashers have run the pharmacy in Penns Castle longer than he has been alive. “It’s going to make Castle Road a mess, too. Blanchard’s fit to be tied.”
    At the mention of her name, Neil tells Tom they’d better be going.
    â€œI think Millie’s got something planned for tomorrow night,” Tom says before they go. “She’ll call you.”
    When Neil and David get back in the car, Neil looks over at his son.
    â€œLast chance,” he says, quietly. “You can drop me off at the front door and be back in Alexandria by nightfall, free of all this mess.”
    David doesn’t look at him.
    â€œIs that what you want?” he asks his father.
    There’s only the slightest hesitation.
    â€œNo. No, that’s not what I want.”
    â€œThen neither do I.”
    And that’s how they leave it. David drives the short distance to the stone sign that says “Penn’s Castle.” The sight of the transplanted English manor house is a shock even to Neil, who grew up in its shadow.
    â€œWell,” David says when they stop in the circular driveway, flashing his crooked smile, “we’re home.”

TWO
    The sun was still shining low and fierce through the trees on Castle Road. But on the slight downhill slope to the house itself, Neil and David sink into the twilight that steals a half-hour of daylight from the ridge’s eastern slope.
    They sit for a moment after David stops in the circular driveway.
    â€œI’d forgotten about this place,” he says. “It sneaked up on me. I remember, now, how damn big it seemed when I was a kid.”
    Neil has to twist his head to see the peak of the roof from the Camry’s low window.
    â€œIt’s still pretty big.”
    In the fast-closing darkness, as he eases out of his son’s car, Neil doesn’t see her at first.
    She must have been standing in the stone archway, half-hidden from them.
    â€œNeil.”
    He’s holding his gym bag, the same one they took from him two years ago and returned this morning, its contents untouched, when she steps forward and hugs him, a crystal glass of bourbon in her hand. She spills some on his back and then tries to wipe it off.
    Neil can’t think of anything to say, just holds the embrace for several seconds, until she asks him isn’t he going to introduce her.
    â€œAh, David, I’m not sure you remember this lady, but she’s your aunt, or half-aunt.…”
    â€œOr half-assed half-aunt,” Blanchard says. “You’ve grown up handsome, honey.” She steps forward and shakes hands, then gives him a hug as well before stepping back and regarding his damaged car. “Deer?”
    David nods. He remembers meeting her only once before, not long after the fishing-worm fiasco. She was then, he somehow recalls, Blanchard Penn Worthy, and she spent a night with them in Chagrin Falls, probably the last year his father played for the Indians. He remembers how beautiful she was, how bright and wild her eyes were, how she had such perfect blonde hair. She was wearing shorts and a halter top, and he would have erections for weeks thinking of her, of how she flirted with him. But he remembers, too, hearing her cry that night, many drinks later, when it was just the adults out in the living room, before he knew much about divorces. His mother was a strong woman, and it unnerved him to hear their guest in