Clouds Read Online Free PDF Page B

remembered. It brought little comfort, though. They got in trouble for ruining their clothes and going to the forest without telling anyone.
    “I remember,” Shelly said flatly.
    “Oh, I can tell that little memory isn’t one of your favorites,” Meri said, settling herself on the couch and getting down to business. “Come on, let’s figure out what you’re going to do. If you can’t stay with the airline, you need another job, right?”
    “It’s beginning to look that way.”
    “What do you want to do?”
    “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I’ve hit a brick wall, Meri. I don’t know what I want anymore. Everything in my life seems to have changed overnight. I wish my problems were aseasy to solve as getting stuck in the mud.”
    “Do you wish anything else?”
    “Like what?”
    “Like,” Meredith cautiously picked her words as if she were picking apples at the grocery store, “do you wish anything else had been different when you were living at home?”
    “What are you getting at?” Shelly never could stand the roundabout games Meredith played when she had something on her mind.
    Meri looked at Shelly. “There’s something I think you should know.”
    “What?”
    “The week after you moved to Los Angeles, Jonathan and I went out to dinner.”
    Shelly felt a tiny stab at the thought of Jonathan going out with her sister. “What does that have to do with anything?” Shelly remembered the way Meredith had tried to talk to her about Jonathan once before. Meri had called Shelly a week after she left for L.A., but Shelly hadn’t thought her little, sixteen-year-old sister could tell her anything that would change her decision to leave home.
    “I’ve never really told you what Jonathan said to me that night.” Meredith looked intently at Shelly.
    “That was five years ago. What does that have to do with losing my job?” Shelly heard the tension in her own voice and realized she was about to lose control.
    Meri looked down at her hands and then back up at her sister. “Jonathan told me what happened between you two. He used the same words you just used. A brick wall. That’s what he felt happened to him. That he hit a brick wall.” She paused and looked concerned. Meredith resembled their mother at that moment, and Shelly didn’t like it one bit. “Have you ever talked that whole situation through with anyone?”
    Shelly found herself unable to answer. A huge lump clogged her throat. Tears brimmed on her eyelids. Where was all this emotion coming from? She was sure it must be the stress of moving and the job problems.
    “I know you’ve never wanted to talk about it with me,” Meredith said slowly. “And that’s fine if you don’t want to, but if you do, I think I understand better now than I did when I was so young. I’ll listen if you want to work it through.”
    “There’s nothing to talk through. That was a long time ago. I didn’t come here to analyze my past,” Shelly said, trying to ignore the lump in her throat. “I’m worried about my future.”
    Meredith nodded with sympathy. “It’s just when you said brick wall, it took me back to Jonathan. Sometimes to find the key that will unlock the future, we have to see what keys we buried in the past.”
    The pressure building inside Shelly hit the bursting point. Tears raced down her cheeks. Her breathing turned into aching sobs. For the first time ever, she let herself cry over Jonathan.

Chapter Four

 
    M
y hormones must be way off,” Shelly finally managed to say in an effort to explain her emotional outburst.
    “That’s okay,” Meredith said. “You’re normal.” She went for a box of Kleenex and a glass of water. Clearing a spot on the end table next to her futon couch, Meredith offered her sister the drink.
    “Okay,” Shelly said, clearing her throat. “This is obviously deeper than I had imagined. I suppose we could talk about it, although I don’t know what good it will do. It was so long ago. It