Midday Clouds - The Charlie Swan Story

Chapter 33 (New Moon 22)

Bella was in something of a funk by the time the weekend came along.

I found her leaning against the wall by the phone, a look of angst on her face and a dead phone in her hand.

"Something wrong?" I asked as I came down the stairs.

"No," she responded, hanging up the phone. "Billy says Jacob is feeling better. It wasn't mono. So that's good."

"Is he coming here, or are you going there?" I asked as I started rooting through the fridge. Harry and I were hitting the river, and would need some sustenance to get us through.

"Neither," Bells said. "He's going out with some other friends."

Weird. Bella and Jake were thick as thieves up until a week ago, when the kids all got sick. Maybe something happened between her and Mike? Maybe Jake still wasn't feeling right?

"Isn't it a little early for lunch?" She asked, breaking me from my thought.

"No, I'm just packing something to take out to the river..."

"Oh, fishing today?"

"Well, Harry called... and it's not raining." I realized that this might be one of those rare occasions that Bells might actually want to spend a sunny weekend day with her old man. We still hadn't had one of those together since she showed up to Forks last January. "Say, did you want me to stay with you, since Jake's out?"

"That's okay, Dad. The fish bite better when the weather's nice."

Well, that was true, but I was sure Harry would understand if I told him something came up. Perhaps we could go get some ice cream cones like we used to, and I could show her the spots that Renee and I used to go.

"Seriously, Dad. I think I'll call Jessica," she said. "We have a Calculus test to study for. I could use her help."

Well, school should come first. "That's a good idea," I conceded. "You've been spending so much time with Jacob, your other friends are going to think you've forgotten them."

She smiled at me and nodded. Only then did I remember what had come of Tuesday's foray into the woods.

"Hey, you'll study here or at Jess's, right?"

"Sure, where else?"

"Well, it's just that I want you to be careful to stay out of the woods, like I told you before."

"More bear trouble?" She asked.

Charlie nodded, frowning. "We've got a missing hiker—we found his camp, but no sign of him. There were some really big animal prints... of course those could have come later, smelling the food... Anyway, they're setting traps for it now."

"Oh," was all she said, but she gave me an affirmative nod so I took that as "understood." I didn't know what reasons Bells would have for wandering around in the woods in the first place—her story of "hiking" smelt suspiciously of bologna—but I trusted she had the smarts not to go venturing out, given all that was going on.

—

"You know, Charlie, we should probably make this an every weekend kind of thing, don't you think?" Harry asked as we hypnotically cast our lines out, and in, out, and in. The sun was actually shining down through a rare, blue sky, and though the March air still had the bite of winter to it, spring's eventuality had turned it to more of a nibble.

"Well, if only the sun would join us every weekend," I countered. "But you're right Harry, it would be nice, sunshine or not."

We stood beside one another for a few minutes in the kind of comfortable silence you can only ever really achieve with family, or friends that you've known so long that they feel like family, before Harry's voice took on a more serious tone.