The Cloud Reader

Bad Information

The shopping carts collided at the end of the aisle and both women apologized at once, stopping and laughing together as they joked about driving licenses and insurance. Jean Howe backed up and let the woman pass before starting into the aisle.

"Excuse me, aren't you Mrs. Howe, from Woody Lane?

Jean smiled. "Yes. Do you know me?"

"Not really, but I see your daughter now and then. Lovely child." Jean smiled again. "She rides her bike out my way."

"Your way?"

"Larkpoint." The woman's eyes fixed on Jean's face to see her reaction.

"Oh gee, I don't think Molly rides out that way very often, you must have-"

"She's about ten or twelve, blonde hair in a ponytail, green bike?"

"Yes but-"

"She comes out to our street and sits on this lot down the block from my house. She was out there yesterday after the rain."

Jean felt her neck redden and she began to resent the tone the woman was taking. "Just how do you know my daughter, or me for that matter?"

"My son, Peter is in your daughter's class at school." The woman left her cart and stepped close to Jean. "You should have a talk with her. It's very strange to see a young girl so far from home sitting in the middle of a field." She gave a sharp nod of her head and resumed her passage through the store, leaving Jean feeling hot, weak and very puzzled.

I sat at the kitchen table wondering what I had done wrong this time. Mom ordered me to sit there while she unpacked the groceries and put them away. Each time I tried to ask she raised a finger for silence. Finally, she got a glass of water and sat across me from just as Brian wandered in.

"Go up and wait in your room, Brian, I want to have a talk with your sister."

"Aw, Mo-o-o-m."

"Now, Brian. Please." He left-deflated.

Mom took a sip of water and then leveled her eyes at me. "I met a woman in the store today, Peter somebody's mother?" She raised her eyebrows at me. "In your class?"

"Oh, Peter Bandovitch. He's the only Peter I know."

"Yes, well Mrs. Bandovitch approached me and told me that she had seen you out on Larkpoint-"

"I told you about that, mom."

"-sitting in a field-more than once."

"Sitting in a field?" I screwed up my face trying to imagine what she meant.

"Have you been out there since we talked?"

I knew I was trapped and Hector's words about truth rattled about in my brain. "Yes."

"Molly what did I tell you? Why are you deliberately being bad when we have so much going on right now?"

"Mom I wasn't being bad! I-"

"You disobeyed my telling you not to go there again." Mom's voice became sharp but there was an underlying tremor. "What is out there? Why are you sitting in a field?"

"I'm not!" My voice rose and we both sat back in surprise. "I'm sorry, mom. I'm not sitting in a field, I don't know what that woman is talking about."

"She saw you. She told me she saw you more than once."

"Twice, mom. I've been out there twice and it's not to sit in a field. I visit the Cloud Reader. Hector Nublado."