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"It's painful." I told him.

"Yeah. Well, sometimes missing kids show up. I read about that girl who turned up ten years or so later. It was in one of those newspapers you get at the supermarket. She had a flashback or something and knew how to get home like a dog or something. Maybe that will happen to your sister.

"You see that movie on television about a month ago about that teenage girl who discovers she was kidnapped by the people she thinks are her parents?"

"I don't watch television," I said. "-What?"

I put the pole over my shoulder, picked up the tackle box, and then hugged the worm can against me.

"We don't watch television."

"You don't ever watch television?"

"That's right."

"Well, what do you do at night?"

"Read, listen to music, work on projects."

"I'd go crazy without television. Dad promised to get us hooked up as soon as possible. We don't get anything on that old antennae. Do you get to a movie once in a while at least?"

"No," I said starting away.

"Well, don't you want to?" he asked, charging after me. I walked on. "Huh?"

"Sometimes." I confessed.

"But your mother won't let you."

"She says there's not much of any value to see,"

"How would she know if you don't go?" he asked. "Oh. I get it. She can see beyond," he said dramatically, and swept his arm out toward the horizon.

"Anyway, let me tell you about this movie last week," he continued, walking alongside me. I felt myself smile inside. It seemed he needed company more than I did, "So they come to get the girl. The cops come to the house and tell her she's been kidnapped by her so-called parents and they confess. She gets returned to her real family, but the grandmother doesn't want her to be brought back."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Turns out the grandfather is her real father." I stopped and shook my head.

"I don't understand."

"What's so hard? The grandfather had sex with his daughter-in-law, and she was born, and the grandmother had her stolen off when she was a baby. I bet you wish now you saw the movie. huh?"

I said nothing.

"They replay them sometimes. If I see its coming on, I'll let you know. and you can watch it at my house."

I started to shake my head.

"You don't have to tell your mother where you're going. You'll just pretend to go fishing or something."

"I don't lie to my mother," I said sharply.

"Yeah, right."

"I don't."

"Well, it doesn't have to be a lie as such. You just don't tell her everything. What they don't know doesn't hurt them," he recited.